THE U.S. SUPREME COURT on Monday let stand a death sentence for a Georgia death row inmate who was convicted of killing his wife and two stepdaughters.

John W. Hightower, who is black, has claimed that prosecutors improperly struck blacks from the jury. Two years ago, the court sent Hightower’s case back to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after the justices ruled in another case that prosecutors had unfairly stacked a black defendant’s jury with whites.