of racial prejudice infecting a capital sentencing proceeding is especially serious in light of the complete finality of the death sentence. The Court, as well as the separate opinions of a majority of the individual Justices, has recognized that the qualitative difference of death from all other punishments requires a correspondingly greater degree of scrutiny of the capital sentencing determination. ... We have struck down capital sentences when we found that the circumstances under which they were imposed created an unacceptable risk that the death penalty [may have been] meted out arbitrarily or capriciously or through whim . . . or mistake.” (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Turner v. Murray, 476 U.S. 28, 35-36, 36-37, 106 S. Ct. 1683, 90 L. Ed. 2d 27 (1986) (<HOLDING>). Indeed, the state concedes that if the
holding that if the reason the victim cannot testify at trial is that the accused murdered her then the accused should be deemed to have forfeited the confrontation right even though the act with which the accused is charged is the same as the one by which he allegedly rendered the witness unavailable holding that a criminal defendant can bring a third party challenge to the peremptory striking of jurors based on race whether or not he is of the same race as the jurors who are struck holding there was no constitutional presumption of juror bias where counsel asked the district court to make an inquiry into potential prejudice because the defendant was black and the prospective jurors were white holding that a capital defendant accused of an interracial crime is entitled to have prospective jurors informed of the race of the victim and questioned on the issue of racial bias holding that tire purposeful exclusion of prospective jurors because they are black and female is discrimination on account of both race and gender in direct violation of batson 