TRAVIS COUNTY PROSECUTOR FIRED FOR RACIST REMARK

  

A Travis County prosecutor has been fired for a comment made last month when he dismissed a juror because she said she belonged to the NAACP.

Assistant District Attorney Steve Brand then compared the century old civil rights organization to a white supremacist group.\

Transcripts show he rejected the juror because she was an ‘activist’ and had posted on her Facebook page a link to ‘The Negro Motorist Green Book,” a guide to safe travel for African-Americans in the pre-civil rights south.

The Austin American Statesmen reports Brand said he would take the same approach to a white juror because “we wouldn’t want a white activist or a white supremacist” on  jury.

Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg says the comments were racially insensitive.

Attorney Tom Nesbitt,  Brand’s lawyer described the punishment as ‘bizarre.’