Appeals court revives California death row inmate challenge

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal appeals court says a California death row inmate can challenge his conviction and sentence for a 1986 killing on grounds that only one Black man was on the jury. The San Francisco Chronicle says the court in San Francisco ruled Friday that Curtis Lee Ervin’s challenge must be reconsidered by a lower court judge who rejected it. Ervin was sentenced for killing a woman in the San Francisco Bay Area in a murder-for-hire arranged by her ex-husband. Ervin claimed discrimination because the prosecutor rejected nine of 11 Black prospective jurors, and only one made it onto the panel.