In a week otherwise filled with disheartening news - five years of war in Iraq, budget woes in Concord and Franklin, the theft of credit card numbers from millions of Hannaford grocery customers - Monitor reporter Melanie Asmar brought us the tale of a true local hero. Or, if you like, a hero's assistant - which, when it comes to saving a man's life, is no small feat at all.

Fred Millett, a 26-year-old aspiring patent lawyer studying at Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, had an internship last fall at the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta. While there, he lucked into work assisting prominent death penalty lawyer Stephen Bright on a case headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The case involved a Louisiana man named Allen Snyder, convicted of killing his estranged wife's lover and sentenced to death. His conviction had been upheld on appeal, but Bright set out to argue that Snyder, who is African-American, did not receive a fair trial, because the judge had allowed prosecutors to systematically eliminate blacks from the jury. Millett helped by researching the history behind specific arguments Bright hoped to make and writing a portion of Bright's brief. He also got to watch Bright argue the case in Washington.

The issue was not new. The Supreme Court has ruled in the past that jurors cannot be excluded solely because of their race, but the practice has continued - particularly in cases with black defendants. Prosecutors presumably worry that black jurors will be overly sympathetic or unwilling to convict, particularly in cases where the stakes are so high. It is racist thinking - that the color of a juror's skin overrides his or her ability to reason.

Critics have argued that trial judges have been willing to accept farfetched arguments for keeping minority jurors out of court. And in the case of Allen Snyder, Bright and Millett prevailed. The court ruled 7-2 Wednesday that Snyder had been treated unfairly. Five blacks in the jury pool had all been disqualified from the case. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, said that the dismissal of one of those five was "suspicious." In contrast, prosecutors had accepted white jurors whose conflicting obligations "appear to have been at least as serious" as the prospective black juror who was excused, Alito wrote.

The justices threw out his death sentence and ordered a new trial. "A man is getting a new trial now, who was on death row awaiting execution. That's - I can't put it into words," Millett said.

With the Snyder case, the court sent a message to judges and prosecutors that it would cast a suspicious eye on the exclusion of blacks from juries. It's a particularly timely message in New Hampshire, where prosecutors and defense attorneys are preparing for two rare death penalty cases, including one that involves a black defendant and a white victim.

The death penalty is wrong for myriad reasons, and we continue to urge New Hampshire lawmakers to abolish it here. But in sparing Allen Snyder's life - at least for now - the Supreme Court struck a powerful blow against racial discrimination in cases of all kinds. Fred Millett helped make it happen.