The State - News from Oct. 7, 1985

The state Supreme Court has reaffirmed its reversal of a murder conviction on grounds that jury selection was biased against black women, even though it later learned a black woman served on the jury. In a 6-1 vote, the court rejected the prosecutor’s request for a new hearing in the case of Edward Motton, a black man convicted of second-degree murder in a 1977 stabbing in Oakland. Justice Malcolm Lucas cast the lone vote in favor of rehearing the case. In rejecting the request, the court issued a brief modified ruling but said those modifications do not “affect our decision.”