Criminal Court Judge Barry Steelman on Wednesday denied a new trial for convicted murderer Stephen Maurice Mobley after an issue arose about the state using a peremptory challenge to excuse a black woman as a juror in his 2018 murder trial.
The defense cited the Batson case before the U.S. Supreme Court in which a prosecutor used his peremptory challenges to remove all four available African Americans from the jury pool.
The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals had sent the case back to Judge Steelman, who said he did not find that the state in the Mobley case was involved in any discriminatory jury selection.
Prosecutor Cameron Williams cited reasons he excused the juror, saying she had indicated she had rather not serve on the jury, she had been on a jury some 45 years earlier in Connecticut that found not guilty for a person charged with rape, she said she had trouble getting to court, and she indicated she might accept a defense theory of "being in the wrong place at the time."
Judge Steelman said he had also felt the woman perhaps should have been excused, saying she was at least 80 years old.
Mobley picked up a murder charge in 2005 and in 2012 was charged with shooting two people at a Brainerd Road gas station with one of them dying. Those cases wound up being dismissed.
However, he was convicted of a Labor Day 2016 shooting on Pinewood Drive that left two people - Jasmine Hines and Rashaud Taylor - dead. A woman who was injured but survived later testified against him.
He received two life prison sentences in that case.