WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor is publicly criticizing a federal prosecutor for a racist remark during a drug trial.
The Monday comment came as the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of man who says he didn't know a group of men he was with at a hotel were preparing for a drug deal.
An assistant U.S. attorney asked him in open court, "You've got African Americans, you've got Hispanics, you've got a bag full of money. Does that tell you — a light bulb doesn't go off in your head and say, 'This is a drug deal?'"
Sotomayor criticized the prosecutor in a statement, saying that comment "tapped a deep and sorry vein of racial prejudice that has run through the history of criminal justice in our nation."
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