Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. on Monday sent a strong message to state courts and prosecutors that racial bias in jury selection is unacceptable.

“Two peremptory strikes on the basis of race are two more than the Constitution allows,” Roberts wrote in the Georgia death row case Foster v. Chatman. Roberts used a one-word sentence—“Nonsense”—to describe a prosecutor’s bogus race-neutral justification for striking a black juror from the murder trial of defendant Timothy Foster, who is black, 30 years ago.

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