IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 16-30332

AARON WILSON, 

 Petitioner - Appellant 

v. 

DARREL VANNOY, WARDEN, LOUISIANA STATE PENITENTIARY, 

 Respondent - Appellee 

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Louisiana 

USDC No. 5:12-CV-310

Before REAVLEY, SOUTHWICK, and HAYNES, Circuit Judges. 

PER CURIAM:*

Appellant, convicted of first degree murder, now appeals only the state 

court’s ruling on racial discrimination in the jury selection,1 specifically, a 

Batson challenge as to certain potential jurors, primarily potential jurors 

 

* Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not 

be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH 

CIR. R. 47.5.4.

1 Neither side challenges the district court’s conclusion that Wilson, a juvenile at the 

time of the offense in question, is entitled to a resentencing under Montgomery v. Louisiana, 

136 S. Ct. 718 (2016), after having received a sentence of life without possibility of parole. 

However, Wilson’s Batson challenge, if successful, would result in a new trial as to guilt or 

innocence, so it is not mooted by the Montgomery determination. 

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

September 8, 2017

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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No. 16-30332

2 

Maxile and Mitchell.2 Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986). The underlying 

facts and somewhat tortured procedural background of this case are wellstated in the Magistrate Judge’s Report and Recommendations, Wilson v. Cain, 

2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 47904 (W.D. La. 2016) and in the Louisiana state 

appellate decision, State v. Wilson, 938 So. 2d 1111 (La. Ct. App. 2006)

(“Wilson”), writ denied, 954 So. 2d 159 (La. 2007), cert. denied, 552 U.S. 917 

(2007), so we will not recount them in detail here. 

As demonstrated by Wilson, 938 So. 2d at 1122-36, the Batson challenges 

were exhausted on direct appeal to the state intermediate appellate court; the 

writ was denied by the Louisiana Supreme Court, and the United States 

Supreme Court denied certiorari. Thus, we are constrained by well-settled law 

requiring great deference to state court determinations. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d); 

Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86 (2011); see also Thaler v. Haynes, 559 U.S. 

43, 47-48 (2010) (reversing appellate court’s grant of habeas relief based solely 

upon a “general requirement” rather than a specific clearly established rule). 

To grant relief here, we must conclude that the state court’s adjudication: 

(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an 

unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as 

determined by the Supreme Court of the United States; or 

(2) resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable 

determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the 

State court proceeding. 

28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). 

 

2 Wilson also challenges the denial of relief with respect to several other jurors. We 

affirm the district court’s ruling as to those jurors as well. We also conclude that the district 

court did not err in failing to permit an expansion of the record.

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We agree with the district court that the state appellate court’s decision 

was neither an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law as 

determined by the Supreme Court nor an unreasonable determination of the 

facts. As the Supreme Court has explained, our deferential review is different 

from simply analyzing the Batson challenge as valid or not as if we were the 

state appellate court. Richter, 562 U.S at 101. “Unreasonable” requires more 

than merely “incorrect.” Id.; see also White v. Woodall, 134 S. Ct. 1697, 1703 

(2014) (“We need not decide here . . . whether the conclusion . . . would be 

correct in a case not reviewed through the lens of § 2254(d)(1).”). Here, the 

prosecutor explained the state’s race neutral reason for preemptory strikes of 

these women. Specifically as to Maxile, the reason given was that she was a 

volunteer teacher at the very school that Wilson had attended, and as to 

Mitchell, the proffered reason was that she was married to a minister, matters 

the prosecutor argued bore upon the potential legal penalty (at that time, the 

death penalty was being sought). 

The problem lies in the confusing decision of the state trial court which 

alternately seemed to find pretextual reasons for strikes by both the prosecutor 

and the defense counsel while at the same time denying any relief. The state 

trial judge orally stated that he was troubled by these strikes by the prosecutor 

(of African-American women) and the defense (of women, particularly 

Caucasian women), but then ultimately stated that “the exclusion of certain 

jurors by peremptory challenges in this particular case does not raise [sic] to a 

level to constitute a violation.” The state trial court’s analysis seemed focused 

on what it perceived as a pattern as well as examining the stated reasons 

themselves; no finding was made regarding credibility or demeanor of any of 

the individual attorneys. The state trial court’s written opinion concluded that 

the “‘pretextual’ [quotation marks in the original] explanations given by the 

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4 

Defendant and State, especially the State” were not “significantly faulty . . . 

to constitute a violation.” 

The state appellate court addressed this problem of inconsistencies in 

the state trial court ruling head-on and at length, applying appropriate 

Supreme Court authority. Wilson, 938 So. 2d at 1122-36. Wilson faults the 

state appellate court for failing to give deference to the state court’s fact 

findings, but the state appellate court carefully analyzed that very issue. Id. at 

1132-34. In so doing, it concluded that the prosecutor’s proffered reasons for 

striking these prospective jurors was facially race neutral.3 Id. at 1132-33.4 

 

3 The state appellate court also considered whether the prosecutor applied the state’s

proffered reasons for striking Mitchell and Maxile to white prospective jurors. See Miller-El 

v. Dretke, 545 U.S. 231, 241 (2005). As to Mitchell, where the proffered reason was that she 

was married to a minister, the state appellate court noted that the prosecutor struck a white

prospective juror because he was a minister. Wilson, 938 So. 2d at 1128, 1130. Wilson argues 

that this reason was shown to be pretextual because a deacon and a ministry graduate (who 

was not employed as a minister) were not struck, but we conclude that lay members of a 

church are not the same as ministers and spouses of ministers. At the very least, this 

argument does not demonstrate that the state appellate court unreasonably applied Supreme 

Court precedent. As to Maxile, where the proffered reason was that she was a volunteer 

teacher at the very school that Wilson had attended, the state appellate court noted that the 

prosecutor challenged a white female teacher. Id. at 1134. Wilson mentions a coach that was 

not struck, but, among other things, he had a relative who had been murdered, so he is not a 

true comparator. 

4 Specifically as to these two jurors, the state appellate court stated: 

Although we are mindful of the great deference owed by an appellate 

court to the trial court's findings of fact, this record leads us to the conclusion 

that the trial court, largely due to the manner in which it held the hearing and 

allocated the burden of persuasion, confounded the racially disproportionate 

effect of the prosecutor's race-neutral reasons for the strikes with an invidious 

intent to discriminate on the basis of race. The record demonstrates, however, 

that the prosecutor struck those jurors whom it believed would be less inclined 

to impose the death penalty. It supported its beliefs as to each juror based on 

both voir dire and other reasons that were facially race-neutral, including the 

common sense concerns of the circumstances of Ms. Mitchell's marriage to a 

minister and Ms. Maxile's relationship with the school for troubled youths in 

which the appellant had attended. The end result of the prosecutor's jury 

selection strategy was to excuse perhaps one more African-American juror 

than one might expect through an entirely random selection process.

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After carefully examining the state court record, the state appellate court 

determined that, even granting deference to the state trial court, the factual 

determinations (though not the ultimate legal conclusion) were clearly 

erroneous. This conclusion was neither an unreasonable determination of the 

facts nor an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law. See 

Splawn v. Thaler, 494 F. App’x 448, 452-53 (5th Cir. 2012) (deferring to state 

appellate court’s determination of factual underpinnings in a Batson challenge 

case). “A state court’s determination that a claim lacks merit precludes federal 

habeas relief so long as ‘fairminded jurists could disagree’ on the correctness 

of the state court’s decision.” Harrington, 562 U.S. at 101. Many jurists have 

reviewed this record and not disturbed the ultimate state trial court holding of 

no Batson violation. We have independently reviewed the relevant portions of 

the record and conclude that, under the great deference owed to the state 

appellate court’s determination, the district court’s judgment must be 

affirmed. 

AFFIRMED. 

 

Id. at 1132.

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