An all-white jury in 1977 convicted Johnny Gates of raping and murdering a white woman and sentenced him to die. Black prospective jurors were described in the notes as "slow," ''old ignorant," ''cocky," ''con artist," ''hostile" and "fat." Pullen was involved in five capital trials for black men between 1975 and 1979, and the prosecution struck all 27 black prospective jurors in those cases, Gates' filing says. In one of the others, prosecutors struck all of the black prospective jurors. In the fourth trial, prosecutors struck 10 black prospective jurors, but there were more black prospective jurors in the final jury pool than strikes available to prosecutors, the filing says.

Source: ABC News March 20, 2018 16:52 UTC