The U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis today upheld the 1996 murder conviction of white supremacist Chevie Kehoe. He’d argued he had ineffective counsel because his attorneys use 30 peremptory challenges to strike white potential jurors, all in effort to get as many blacks on his jury as possible. Their theory was that black jurors were less inclined to vote for the death penalty and less likely to believe government testimony. The jury ended up including 9 black members. The court said the strategy might have been “misguided,” but didn’t amount to denial of Kehoe’s right to counsel.

Kehoe was convicted of killing an Arkansas gun dealer and his family. He’s serving three life sentences. He’d earlier lost a direct appeal of the conviction.

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