Court upholds DA’s exclusion of UNLV professor as juror

By Cy Ryan

Friday, Aug. 5, 2011 | 12:17 p.m.

The Nevada Supreme Court has upheld the Clark County district attorney’s office’s exclusion of a UNLV professor as a prospective juror in a drug case because he might be liberal.

At the drug trial of Collie Hawkins in 2009, Deputy District Attorney Peter Thunell used a pre-emptory challenge to excuse Professor Yfantis Evangelos, saying “professors are notoriously liberal,” then adding “I just don’t like them on my juries, period.”

The district attorney’s office said in its appeal that the exclusion of the professor, who is of Middle Eastern descent, was race neutral.

The court said Hawkins, in his appeal, failed to show there was racial discrimination in excusing the computer science professor.

Deputy Public Defender Howard Brooks had argued there was racial discrimination and an equal protection violation.

Brooks said the reason given by the prosecutor was “ridiculous and absurd.” He said professors, as a general rule, are not liberal and the statement by the prosecution wasn’t true.

In appeal documents, the district attorney’s office said half of the jurors were minorities. The jury convicted Hawkins, who is black, of conspiracy in connection with the sale of cocaine to an undercover police officer in downtown Las Vegas.

Hawkins was sentenced to two to five years in prison.