03 December 2019 :

The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California has overturned the conviction of Anthony Oliver, finding that that Los Angeles prosecutors had unconstitutionally exercised their discretionary jury strikes on the basis of race to exclude African Americans from serving on the jury. In granting Oliver a new trial, the federal court ruled that the California Supreme Court had unreasonably concluded that the prosecution’s jury strikes had not been racially based. Along with his half-brother Albert Lewis, Oliver, now 57, Black, was sentenced to death in Los Angeles County on May 21, 1993 for the murders of Eddie Mae Lee, 76, and Patronella Luke, 35--gunned down at the Mt. Olive Church of God in Christ on July 21, 1989--and the attempted murder of Luke's husband, Peter, who was wounded.