The Law: Women, Gimps, Blacks, Hippies Need Not Apply

In Dallas there is much that is larger than life—particularly prison sentences. In April a jury imposed 5,005 years on each of the two convicted kidnapers of Socialite Amanda Mayhew Dealey. Of course, defense attorneys pull out every stop and follow every stereotype to get a sympathetic jury. But one hint of how prosecutors manage to select vengeance-minded jurors came out recently in the liberal Texas Observer. It obtained a copy of a syllabus put out by the Dallas County district attorney's office. The chapter on "Jury Selection in a Criminal Case," written by Jon Sparling, the assistant D.A. who got...