STARKVILLE — A community activist is protesting the all-white jury in the trial of a former Mississippi State University student accused of killing his roommate.
Dorothy Bishop, who has protested outside the Oktibbeha County Courthouse about a number of Civil Rights issues and frequently challenges the county Board of Supervisors, was outside the courthouse annex for much of the morning in protest of 29-year-old Bobby Batiste”s all-white jury.
Batiste is black; Andreas Galanis, Batiste”s former roommate who he is accused of killing, was of Greek descent.
“I don”t know this boy, but I came out here to protest this jury,” Bishop said. “There”s 12 jurors and they”re all white, and two alternates and they”re white, and there”s still racism out there and I have to do what I can to help this boy.”
Bishop didn”t attend jury selection earlier this week, when prospective jurors who vowed never to institute the death penalty, even if a suspect was found guilty of capital murder, were eliminated. The majority of those stating holding this opinion were black. Prospective jurors who said they would never vote to institute the death penalty were not allowed to serve on the jury.
Jury members must be willing to follow court instructions — to consider execution and life without parole — if a suspect is found guilty, and if Batiste is convicted of capital murder, he faces execution or life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Testimony began Thursday at 8:30 a.m. and continued until shortly after 8 p.m.
Bishop entered the courtroom midway through the day and sat in her wheelchair about halfway down the center aisle, eyes staring intently at the parade of witnesses who took the stand.
She and the jury watched Batiste”s videotaped statement to police, during which he admitted he put Galanis” body in a wheelbarrow after the killing and rolled it into an empty bedroom in their apartment. A third housemate, Jae Woo Joo, wasn”t home at the time of the killing.
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