Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/04-52?redir=1
Timestamp: 2020-04-08 16:47:46
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RICE v. COLLINS | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute
RICE v. COLLINS (No. 04-52)
RICE, WARDEN, et al.v. COLLINS
No. 04–52.Argued December 5, 2005—Decided January 18, 2006
(a) Under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79, 98, a defendant’s challenge to a peremptory strike allegedly based on race requires, inter alia, that the trial court determine whether the defendant has carried his burden of proving purposeful discrimination. This involves evaluating “the persuasiveness of the [prosecutor’s proffered] justification” for the strike, but “the ultimate burden of persuasion regarding racial motivation rests with, and never shifts from, the opponent of the strike.” Purkett v. Elem, 514 U. S. 765, 768. Because, under AEDPA, a federal habeas court must find the state-court conclusion “an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding,” 28 U.S.C. §2254(d)(2), a federal court can only grant Collins’ petition if it was unreasonable to credit the prosecutor’s race-neutral explanations for the Batson challenge. Pp. 3–4.
Even prior to this Court’s decision in Batson v. Kentucky,476 U. S. 79 (1986) , California courts barred peremptory challenges to jurors based on race. People v. Wheeler, 22 Cal. 3d 258, 583 P. 2d 748 (1978). Although our recent decision in Johnson v. California, 545 U. S. ___ (2005), disapproved of the manner in which Wheeler and Batson were implemented in some California cases, the state courts in this case used the correct analytical framework in considering and ruling upon the objection to the prosecutorial strike.
A defendant’s Batson challenge to a peremptory strike requires a three-step inquiry. First, the trial court must determine whether the defendant has made a prima facie showing that the prosecutor exercised a peremptory challenge on the basis of race. 476 U. S., at 96–97. Second, if the showing is made, the burden shifts to the prosecutor to present a race-neutral explanation for striking the juror in question. Id., at 97–98. Although the prosecutor must present a comprehensible reason, “[t]he second step of this process does not demand an explanation that is persuasive, or even plausible”; so long as the reason is not inherently discriminatory, it suffices. Purkett v. Elem,514 U. S. 765, 767–768 (1995) (per curiam). Third, the court must then determine whether the defendant has carried his burden of proving purposeful discrimination. Batson, supra, at 98; Miller-El v. Dretke, 545 U. S. ___, ___ (2005) (slip op., at 18). This final step involves evaluating “the persuasiveness of the justification” proffered by the prosecutor, but “the ultimate burden of persuasion regarding racial motivation rests with, and never shifts from, the opponent of the strike.” Purkett, supra, at 768.
On direct appeal in federal court, the credibility findings a trial court makes in a Batson inquiry are reviewed for clear error. Hernandez v. New York, 500 U. S. 352, 364–366 (1991) (plurality opinion) (holding that evaluation of a prosecutor’s credibility “lies ‘peculiarly within a trial judge’s province’ ”). Under AEDPA, however, a federal habeas court must find the state-court conclusion “an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. §2254(d)(2). Thus, a federal habeas court can only grant Collins’ petition if it was unreasonable to credit the prosecutor’s race-neutral explanations for the Batson challenge. State-court factual findings, moreover, are presumed correct; the petitioner has the burden of rebutting the presumption by “clear and convincing evidence.” §2254(e)(1). See Miller-El, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 6). Although the Ninth Circuit assumed §2254(e)(1)’s presumption applied in this case, 365 F. 3d, at 677, the parties disagree about whether and when it does. We need not address that question. Even assuming, arguendo, that only §2254(d)(2) applied in this proceeding, the state-court decision was not an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the state court.
Second, the panel majority concluded that the trial court should have questioned the prosecutor’s credibility because of her “attempt to use gender as a race-neutral basis for excluding Jurors 016 and 019.” 365 F. 3d, at 684. Respondent’s trial occurred in August 1996, over two years after our decision in J. E. B. v. Alabama ex rel. T. B., 511 U. S. 127 (1994) , made clear that discrimination in jury selection on the basis of gender violates the Equal Protection Clause. Although the record contains a somewhat confusing colloquy on this point, it can be read as indicating that one of the prosecutor’s aims in striking Juror 16 was achieving gender balance on the jury. Concerned about the constitutionality of such a strike, the trial court made clear that it would not accept gender as a race-neutral explanation. The panel majority assigned the gender justification more weight than it can bear. The prosecutor provided a number of other permissible and plausible race-neutral reasons, and Collins provides no argument why this portion of the colloquy demonstrates that a reasonable factfinder must conclude the prosecutor lied about the eye rolling and struck Juror 16 based on her race.
The panel majority did not stop at the conclusion that the trial court rendered an unreasonable factual determination in light of the evidence presented. It further concluded that the state courts had unreasonably applied clearly established federal law as determined by this Court. 365 F. 3d, at 679; 28 U.S.C. §2254(d)(1). The question whether a state court errs in determining the facts is a different question from whether it errs in applying the law. In this case there is no demonstration that either the trial court or the California Court of Appeal acted contrary to clearly established federal law in recognizing and applying Batson’s burden-framework. See 2 App. 14–15; App. to Pet. for Cert. 114–116. The only question, as we have noted, is whether the trial court’s factual determination at Batson’s third step was unreasonable. For the reasons discussed above, we conclude it was not.
Twenty years ago Justice Thurgood Marshall warned that the test of Batson v. Kentucky,476 U. S. 79 (1986) , would fail to ferret out unconstitutional discrimination in the selection of jurors. Id., at 102–103 (concurring opinion) (“The decision today will not end the racial discrimination that peremptories inject into the jury-selection process”). In my view, history has proved Justice Marshall right. See Miller-El v. Dretke, 545 U. S. ___, ___ (2005) (slip op., at 1) (Breyer, J., concurring). And today’s case, like Miller-El, helps to illustrate Batson’s fundamental failings.
Finally, the case before us makes clear that ordinary mechanisms of judicial review cannot assure Batson’seffectiveness. The reasons are structural. The trial judge is best placed to consider the factors that underlie credibility: demeanor, context, and atmosphere. And the trial judge is best placed to determine whether, in a borderline case, a prosecutor’s hesitation or contradiction reflect (a) deception, or (b) the difficulty of providing a rational reason for an instinctive decision. Appellate judges cannot on the basis of a cold record easily second-guess a trial judge’s decision about likely motivation. These circumstances mean that appellate courts will, and must, grant the trial courts considerable leeway in applying Batson. See Hernandez v. New York,500 U. S. 352 (1991) . As the present case illustrates, considerations of federalism require federal habeas courts to show yet further deference to state-court judgments. See 28 U.S.C. §2254(d)(2) (state-court factual determination must stand unless “unreasonable”).
The upshot is an unresolvable tension between, on the one hand, what Blackstone called an inherently “ ‘arbitrary and capricious’ ” peremptory challenge system, Miller-El, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 7) (Breyer, J., concurring) (quoting 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 346 (1769)), and, on the other hand, the Constitution’s nondiscrimination command. Given this constitutional tension, we may have to choose. Miller-El, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 8) (Breyer, J., concurring); Swain v. Alabama,380 U. S. 202, 244 (1965) (Goldberg, J., dissenting) (“Were it necessary to make an absolute choice between the right of a defendant to have a jury chosen in conformity with the requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment and the right to challenge peremptorily, the Constitution compels a choice of the former”); Batson, supra, at 107 (Marshall, J., concurring) (same).
I have argued that legal life without peremptories is no longer unthinkable. Miller-El, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 6–7) (concurring opinion) (citing, inter alia, the experience of England). I continue to believe that we should reconsider Batson’stest and the peremptory challenge system as a whole. Nonetheless, because the Court correctly applies the present legal framework, I concur in its opinion.