‘TROUBLESOME’

Trump Impeachment Lawyer Once Struck Black Juror He Claimed ‘Shucked and Jived’

The South Carolina Supreme Court determined Greg Harris used racial stereotypes when he tossed two Black jurors from a trial in 1989.

A lawyer on former President Trump’s legal team for his second impeachment trial was once found to have used racial stereotypes when he tossed two Black jurors from a DUI trial in 1989. Harris, while working in South Carolina’s 5th Judicial Circuit Solicitor’s Office, described one potential juror he struck at the time as having “shucked and jived” as he approached a microphone in the courtroom, adding, “That’s just my analysis of the way he walked up here.” The trial judge claimed his comments weren’t evidence of discrimination, as he’d provided other explanations for tossing the jurors, but the South Carolina Supreme Court found them to be “troublesome.” “The use of this racial stereotype is evidence of the prosecutor’s subjective intent to discriminate,” the court said. Harris went on to become the chairman of the South Carolina Ethics Commission and has been an expert witness for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. He is one of four lawyers who compromise Trump’s main legal team for his upcoming impeachment trial in the Senate.