The nation's first Hispanic Supreme Court justice had sharp words for a prosecutor who asked an African-American defendant a racist question in a drug case,Reuters reports.
"You've got African-Americans, you've got Hispanics, you've got a bag full of money," the unnamed prosecutor asked during a trial, according to Reuters. "Does that tell you - a light bulb doesn't go off in your head and say, this is a drug deal?"
The Supreme Court refused to take the case and potentially give the defendant a retrial, but Sotomayor took the unusual step of writing a statement that condemned the prosecutor's words, Reuters reported.
Sotomayor wrote that the prosecutor "tapped a deep and sorry vein of racial prejudice that has run through the history of criminal justice in our nation," and that he had attempted to "substitute racial stereotype for evidence."
Head over to Reuters to read more about the drug case at issue.
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