African-American man executed despite suspicions of racism by jurors who sentenced him to death

In implementation of a man sentenced to death for triple murder in a trial marred, according to the defense, by racist prejudicesthe authorities of the American state of Texas proceeded on Wednesday (8/2).

To 54-year-old African-American John Baldine, a lethal injection was administered and he was pronounced dead at 6:36 p.m (local time), the state prison directorate said, nearly 25 years after he murdered three white teenagers in their sleep.

According to documents, one of the victims was his girlfriend’s brother, who disapproved of the interracial relationship and threatened to kill him.

John Baldine never denied being the perpetrator, however Sean Nolan’s lawyer argued that the death penalty imposed was due to racial bias in his trial.

In his appeal to the Supreme Court, which was not followed up, he complained that the prosecutor had excluded black jurors and also accused John Baledine’s lawyers in that trial of “showing racism and hostility” towards the people they were supposed to defend.

“Can you spell ‘justified lynching?'” one of them asked in a handwritten note, referring to the murders carried out in the South during the segregation period to terrorize the black population.

In addition, Sean Nolan pointed out, one of the jurors, a former military man extremely hostile to African Americans, “intimidated” the others into unanimously imposing the death penalty.

“I’m rather headstrong and aggressive,” Dory England admitted in writing in 2021. During jury deliberations, “I made it clear that (…) the death penalty was the only option,” he also acknowledged.

Sean Nolan submitted that admission and other new evidence to a Texas court on January 30, asking for the case to be reopened. But the request was rejected, prompting him to approach the Supreme Court, to no avail.

John Baldine became the sixth death row inmate executed in the US this year.