JOHNNY BENNETT v. BRYAN P. STIRLING, Commissioner, South Carolina Department of Corrections;
JOSEPH MCFADDEN, Warden, Lieber Correctional Institution
US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Wilkinson, Nov. 21, 2016,
AEDPA – Capital Punishment – Sentencing was “suffused with racially coded references to a degree that made a fair proceeding impossible.”

“The most egregious appeals to racial prejudice came in his closing argument, in which he referred to Bennett using a slew of derogatory terms. Myers admonished the jury, “Meeting [Bennett] again will be like meeting King Kong on a bad day.” He also labeled Bennett a “caveman,” a “mountain man,” a “monster,” a “big old tiger,” and “[t]he beast of burden.” J.A. In addition, Myers intentionally elicited irrelevant, inflammatory testimony from one of the state’s witnesses, who recounted a dream in which he was chased by murderous, black Indians. While cross-examining a defense witness, Myers alluded to Bennett’s sexual partner as “the blonde-headed lady,” alerting the jury to the interracial nature of the relationship.”

While the defendant’s history might have supported the “caveman” (he had dragged two victims by their hair), “big old tiger” (size), “monster” (violent nature of crimes), put together with the other references it became clear to the Court that they “plugged into potent symbols of racial prejudice, encouraging the jury to fear Bennett or regard him as less human on account of his race.”

Over the course of the hearing, the defense was objecting repeatedly to the appeals to racial bias in front of an all-white jury panel. During the original trial, the prosecutor apparently used none of this language in front of a mixed-race jury panel.