The Supreme Court on Tuesday considered whether a Louisiana prosecutor who compared a black murder defendant to O.J. Simpson practiced racial bias to sway an all-white jury, reports the Associated Press.

The defendant, Allen Snyder, was convicted and given the death sentence in 1996 for killing a married male friend of his estranged wife, who was injured in the same knife attack.

During sentencing in New Orleans, the prosecutor told jurors that circumstances resembled the murder case against Simpson, who "got away with it."

Later, Snyder's lawyers claimed the comment was an attempt by the prosecutor to inject race into the trial, and that he wrongly used his powers to keep black people off the jury.

"They (excluded) all the blacks they could in this case," Snyder's attorney Stephen Bright told the Supreme Court Tuesday. "I think what this prosecutor learned from O.J. Simpson ... is that you don't let blacks on the jury."

Snyder is seeking a new trial.