Case Title: Hawkins v. State

Citation: 127 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 50

Docket Number: 

State: nevada

Court: Nevada Supreme Court

Date: 2011-08-04T00:00:00Z

Document:
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127 Nev, Advance Opinion SO
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEVADA

COLLIE HAWKINS, No. 54850
Appellant, FI L E D
‘THE STATE OF NEVADA,

Respondent. AUG 04 2011

 

 

Appeal from a judgment of conviction, ae to a jury

verdict, of conspiracy to violate the Uniform Controlled Substances Act.
Eighth Judicial District Court, Clark County; Stefany Miley, Judge.
Affirmed,

 

Philip J. Kohn, Public Defender, and Howard S. Brooks, Deputy Public
Defender, Clark County,
for Appellant.

Catherine Cortez Masto, Attorney General, Carson City; David J. Roger,
District Attorney, and Steven S. Owens, Chief Deputy District Attorney,

Clark County,
for Respondent.

BEFORE DOUGLAS, C.J., HARDESTY and PICKERING, JJ.

OPINION

By the Court, PICKERING, J.:

Appellant Collie Hawkins contends that the district court
erred by rejecting his challenges to the State's peremptory challenges of
three jurors as impermissible race discrimination under Batson_v.

NAB 495

 
re

Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986). On the record and briefs presented, we
cannot sustain this claim,

‘The defense objected to the State's peremptory challenges,
citing Batson, ‘The State responded with ostensibly race-neutral
explanations for its juror strikes. In particular, the State justified
removing a Middle-Eastern computer science professor from the jury
because “professors are notoriously liberal,” further clarifying, “I just don't
like them on my juries, period.” The defense did not challenge the State's

 

explanations

 

pretextual or the district court's acceptance of them as
illegitimate. But see Kaczmarek v. State, 120 Nev. 314, 333, 91 P.3d 16,
29 (2004) (“Unless a discriminatory intent is inherent in the prosecutor's
explanation, the reason offered will be deemed race neutral.” (quoting
Hernandez v, New York, 600 U.S. 352, 360 (1991),

Appellate review of a Batson challenge gives deference to
“{tJhe trial court's decision on the ultimate question of discriminatory
intent.” Diomampo v. State, 124 Nev. 414, 422-28, 185 P.3d 1031, 1036-37
(2008) (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted). In
Felkner_v, Jackson, the prosecutor struck an African American from the
jury because she had a master's degree in social work. 562 U.S.__, _,
131 S. Ct. 1305, 1306 (2011). When the defense objected, citing Batson,
the state trial court accepted the prosecutor's explanation “that he does
not ‘like to keep social workers” and rejected the Batson challenge. Id,

 

‘The defense claimed that removal on the basis of education and occupation

'The State also struck two Hispanic jurors, one because he served on
another jury and seemed proud that the defendant was acquitted, and
another because the prosecution believed the juror was lying,

 

 
oe

was a form of discrimination but did not specifically challenge the reason
as being pretextual until the appeal. Id, Both the state court and federal
district court affirmed the trial court's Batson decision on habeas review.
Id, at __, 181 8. Ct, at 1807. However, the Ninth Circuit summarily
reversed. Id.

‘The Supreme Court in Felkner in turn reversed the Ninth
Circuit. Id, It held that the trial court did not act unreasonably in
deeming the prosecutor's explanation about not “likling] to keep social
workers" to be “race-neutral” and that the determination of pretext thus
came down to a credibility determination by the trial court judge. Id,
(citing Snyder v, Louisiana, 652 U.S. 472, 477 (2008); see also Purkett v.
Elem, 514 U.S. 765, 767-68 (1995),

As in Felkner, the district court in this case accepted the
State’s

 

like of professors as an adequate explanation for the peremptory
challenge when the defense did not challenge the explanation a
pretextual. Among the bases for finding pretext are:
(1) the similarity of answers to voir dire questions
given by [minority] prospective jurors who were
struck by the prosecutor and answers by
{nonminority] prospective jurors who were not
struck, (2) the disparate questioning by the
prosecutors of [minority] and [nonminority)
prospective jurors, (3) the use by the prosecutors
of the “jury shufile,” and (4) evidence of historical
discrimination against minorities in jury selection
by the district attorney's office.
Ford v. State, 122 Nev. 398, 405, 132 P.3d 574, 578-79 (2006) (internal
footnote omitted) (citing Miller-El v. Dretke, 546 U.S. 231, 240-65 (2005),
In addition, “[a]n implausible or fantastic justification by the State may,

and probably will, be found to be pretext for intentional discrimination.”

 

 
Id, at 404, 132 P.3d at 578 (citing Kaczmarek, 120 Nev. at 384, 91 P.3d at
30).

Here, the defense did not develop pretext,

‘There are three stages to a Batson challenge—(1) the
opponent of the peremptory challenge must show “a prima facie case of
racial discrimination’; (2) the proponent of the peremptory challenge must
then present a race-neutral explanation; and (8) the trial court must
determine whether the parties have satisfied their respective burdens of
proving or rebutting purposeful racial discrimination. Purkett, 514 U.S.
at 767.

It is not until the third step that the

persuasiveness of the justification becomes

relevant—the step in which the trial court

determines whether the opponent of the strike has

carried his burden .... [T]o say that a trial judge

may choose to disbelieve a silly or superstitious
reason at step three is quite different from saying
that a trial judge must terminate the inquiry at
step two when the race-neutral reason is silly or
superstitious, The latter violates the principle
that the ultimate burden of persuasion regarding
racial motivation rests with, and never shifts
from, the opponent of the strike.

Id, at 768. The defense in this case, as the opponent of the challenges,

 

 

stopped at step 1. Failing to traverse an ostensibly race-neutral
explanation for a peremptory challenge as pretextual in the district court

stymies meaningful appellate review which, as noted, is deferential to the
distriet court.
United States v. Roberts, 163 F.3d 998 (7th Cir. 1998), is

instructive. There, the prosecution peremptorily challenged an African-

 

 
American juror and offered as his race-neutral explanation that the juror
was a teacher and would “not (be] neutral towards the government's case.”
Id, at 998. The defendant failed to point out that there was a Caucasian
teacher in the venire whom the prosecutor did not challenge, a point he
tried to develop on appeal. Id. at 999, The Seventh Circuit recognized
that the prosecutor's reason for striking the African-American teacher was
“lame,” id, at 998, but, nevertheless, upheld the lower court decision to
reject the Batson challenge as “a finding of fact, which stands unless
clearly erroneous.” Id, at 999; of, Johnson v. Gibson, 169 F.3d 1299, 1248
(10th Cir, 1999) (holding that Batson does not impose “an independent

 

duty on the trial court to pore over the record and compare the
characteristics of jurors, searching for evidence of pretext, absent any
pretext argument or evidence presented by counsel”),

It is almost impossible for this court to determine if the reason
for the peremptory challenge is pretextual without adequate development
in the district court. Although the distriet court did not make specific
findings, the prosecutor's explanations for removing the jurors did not
reflect an inherent intent to discriminate, and Hawkins failed to show
purposeful discrimination or pretext or to offer any analysis of the
relevant considerations, such as comparative juror analysis or disparate
questioning. Hawkins similarly offers no relevant argument on appeal

other than the summary conclusion that the prosecutor’s reasons for

removing the jurors were pretextual. This is not enough.

 

 
For these reasons, we conclude that the district court did not
err by rejecting Hawkins’ Batson challenge, and we affirm the judgment of

conviction,

 

‘We concur:

Douglas
PAu

Hardesty

or