Case Name: STATE of Louisiana v. Donald KNOX; STATE of Louisiana v. Rometro JACKSON
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1992-11-30
Citations: 609 So. 2d 803
Docket Number: No. 91-KK-1906
Parties: STATE of Louisiana v. Donald KNOX. STATE of Louisiana v. Rometro JACKSON.
Judges: CALOGERO, C.J., and LEMMON, J., concur and assign reasons.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 609
Pages: 803–809

Head Matter:
STATE of Louisiana v. Donald KNOX. STATE of Louisiana v. Rometro JACKSON.
No. 91-KK-1906.
Supreme Court of Louisiana.
Nov. 30, 1992.
Kathryn M. Flynn, David W. Price, Baton Rouge, for applicant.
Richard P. Ieyoub, Atty. Gen., Douglas P. Moreau, Dist. Atty., Gwendolyn K. Brown, Aaron D. Brooks, Asst. Dist. At-tys., for respondent.
Helen G. Berrigan, New Orleans, for Louisiana Ass’n of Crim. Lawyers, amicus curiae.
Ellis P. Adams, Jr., Baton Rouge, for Louisiana Dist. Atty. Ass’n, amicus curiae.

Opinion:
PER CURIAM.
We granted certiorari in these two consolidated cases to determine whether the State may successfully object during voir dire to a minority defendant's alleged racially discriminatory exercise of peremptory challenges. In each of these criminal cases, the State objected to a black defendant's exercise of peremptory challenges to strike white jurors. The district court overruled the State's objections, finding that the State lacked standing under the Equal Protection Clause to assert violations of the jurors' equal protection rights. The court of appeal reversed and ruled that the State, in defense of a prospective white juror's constitutional rights, may properly raise objections to a black defendant's alleged racially discriminatory exercise of peremptory challenges. For the reasons expressed hereafter, we affirm the decision of the court of appeal. The State may properly object to a minority criminal defendant's racially discriminatory exercise of peremptory challenges, and, consistent with Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), require the defendant to assert a racially neutral explanation for the peremptory challenge.
Each of these criminal cases, consolidated in the court of appeal and in this court, involves a black defendant. Donald Knox was charged with obscenity involving a white female victim and went to trial before a jury of six; Rometro Jackson was charged with distribution of cocaine and was to be tried before a twelve person jury. In both cases, the defendants exercised peremptory challenges against prospective white jurors whereupon the State objected, arguing that the jurors were legally qualified and that voir dire had established no apparent basis for the challenges other than race. The State maintains that criminal defense attorneys should be prohibited from exercising racially based peremptory challenges, and that the State has standing under Batson v. Kentucky, supra, and Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. -, 111 S.Ct. 1364, 113 L.Ed.2d 411 (1991), to assert the equal protection rights of a prospective juror to serve on the jury. The defendants, relying upon Polk County v. Dodson, 454 U.S. 312, 102 S.Ct. 445, 70 L.Ed.2d 509 (1981), contend that criminal defense attorneys are not state actors, but are instead adversaries of the State, and that the State cannot object to a defendant's peremptory challenges.
The very recent United States Supreme Court case of Georgia v. McCollum, 505 U.S. -, 112 S.Ct. 2348, 120 L.Ed.2d 33 (1992), presented almost identical issues as those raised in this case, with the exception that McCollum involved a white defendant, while this case involves black defendants. The threshold questions which the Supreme Court addressed in McCollum, regarding whether a criminal defense attorney's exercise of peremptory challenges constitutes state action for purposes of equal protection, and whether defense counsel can be considered a state actor in such a circumstance, were presented as well in the case here under review. The U.S. Supreme Court determined in McCollum that state action is present and that a criminal defense attorney is a state actor when exercising peremptory challenges, thereby implicating the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. McCollum, 505 U.S. at-, 112 S.Ct. at 2354-2357. Because that aspect of McCollum decides those same questions in this case, we are no longer confronted with deciding those issues.
The remaining important issue which we must resolve in this case is whether the holding in McCollum, that "the [United States] Constitution prohibits a criminal defendant from engaging in purposeful discrimination on the ground of race in the exercise of peremptory challenges," 505 U.S. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 2359, should include the situation where a black criminal defendant exercises peremptory challenges against white prospective jurors. McCol-lum involved the reverse situation, white criminal defendants charged with criminal conduct against black victims. The defendants there expressed the intention of exercising their peremptory challenges to exclude African-American citizens from participating as jurors in the trial. McCollum, 505 U.S. at-, 112 S.Ct. at 2351. The Supreme Court determined that the white criminal defendant who exercises racially discriminatory peremptory challenges (against black prospective jurors) inflicts the harms that were addressed in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), because the rejected juror "... is subjected to open and public racial discrimination." McCollum, 505 U.S. at-, 112 S.Ct. at 2353. Furthermore, "[selection procedures that purposefully exclude African-Americans from juries undermine . public confidence [that the verdict is given in accordance with law by persons who are fair]." McCollum, 505 U.S. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 2353. Other language in this opinion is more general and prohibits all criminal defendants from exercising racially based peremptory challenges.
As already noted, the cases at hand are distinguishable from McCollum in that they involve black criminal defendants. Such was the case also in a second Georgia case which arose at almost the same time as McCollum. In State v. Carr, 261 Ga. 845, 413 S.E.2d 192 (1992), just as in this case, a black criminal defendant challenged white jurors. Writs to the United States Supreme Court in that case have very recently been acted upon. Our decision to day will therefore be affected by Carr as well as by McCollum.
A review of the history of these two cases, McCollum and Carr, is essential at this point. In McCollum, the Georgia Supreme Court held that it would not prohibit racially based peremptory challenges by a white criminal defendant's excusing black potential jurors. The State of Georgia applied for a writ of certiorari to the United States Supreme Court. Meanwhile, in February 1992, while McCollum was pending in the Supreme Court, the Georgia Supreme Court in Carr ruled once more that it would not prohibit a black criminal defendant from exercising racially based peremptory challenges to excuse white potential jurors, stating that its own decision in State v. McCollum, 261 Ga. 473, 405 S.E.2d 688 (Ga.1991) was controlling. State v. Carr, 261 Ga. 845, 413 S.E.2d 192 (Ga.1992).
It was only after the decision in Carr by the Georgia Supreme Court that McCollum was decided by the United States Supreme Court. In McCollum the Supreme Court stated:
We hold that the Constitution prohibits a criminal defendant from engaging in purposeful discrimination on the ground of race in the exercise of peremptory challenges. Accordingly, if the State demonstrates a prima facie case of racial discrimination by the defendants, the defendants must articulate a racially neutral explanation for peremptory challenges. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Georgia is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
McCollum, 505 U.S. at-, 112 S.Ct. at 2359.
In the interim, before the U.S. Supreme Court rendered its opinion in McCollum, the State of Georgia petitioned for writs of certiorari concerning the decision rendered in Carr. Three months after the McCol-lum decision, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari in Carr stating "[t]he judgment is vacated and the case is remanded to the Supreme Court of Georgia for further consideration in light of Georgia v. McCollum." Georgia v. Carr, — U.S.-, 113 S.Ct. 30, 121 L.Ed.2d 3 (U.S. October 5, 1992). The Court supplied no written reasons or instructions.
Carr involved the same issue that is before us in this Knox!Jackson case. By upsetting the Georgia Supreme Court's pro-defense resolution and remanding for reconsideration of Carr in light of McCol-lum, the Supreme Court has indicated that the Carr case is probably affected by its holding in McCollum. Because of the language used in McCollum prohibiting a criminal defendant from exercising racially based peremptory challenges, we determine that the McCollum decision extends to the circumstance at issue in this case where, just as in Carr, a black defendant allegedly exercised, or expressed the intention of exercising, racially based peremptory challenges against white prospective jurors.
Thus, applying our appreciation of the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, we decide the issue before us favorably to the State. We will not upset the decision of the First Circuit Court of Appeal which determined that the State may object during voir dire to a black defendant's racially discriminatory exercise of peremptory challenges and thereby invoke the Batson requirement that the challenging defendant must supply racially neutral reasons for exercising these peremptory challenges.
DECREE
For the foregoing reasons, the judgments of the court of appeal in these consolidated cases are affirmed and the cases are remanded to the respective district courts for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion.
AFFIRMED; REMANDED TO DISTRICT COURT
CALOGERO, C.J., and LEMMON, J., concur and assign reasons.
WATSON, J., concurs for reasons assigned by CALOGERO, C.J.
. The identical issue was raised in a third case, State v. Malveo, 609 So.2d 802, which has also been decided this day.
. In Knox's case, the jury was selected and sworn, and the trial was in progress when the court of appeal issued a stay order.
.In Jackson's case, the jury was selected, but not yet sworn, when the trial was stayed by the court of appeal.
. In her dissent, Justice O'Connor disagreed with the Court's conclusion. She stated that "... criminal defendants and their lawyers are not government actors when they perform traditional trial functions," McCollum, 505 U.S. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 2361 (O'Connor, J., dissenting), and that exercising "... peremptory challenges plainly qualifies as a 'traditional function' of criminal defense lawyers, see Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202, 212-219, 85 S.Ct. 824, 831-835, 13 L.Ed.2d 759 (1965); Lewis v. United States, 146 U.S. 370, 376, 13 S.Ct. 136, 138, 36 L.Ed. 1011 (1962) ." McCollum, 505 U.S. at-, 112 S.Ct. at 2362 (O'Connor, J., dissenting).
. The majority stated that "[i]t is an affront to justice to argue that a fair trial includes the right to discriminate against a group of citizens based upon their race," McCollum, 505 U.S. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 2358, and that "... the exercise of q peremptory challenge must not be based on either the race of the juror or the racial stereotypes held by the party." McCollum, 505 U.S. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 2359. "[Therefore], [w]e hold that the Constitution prohibits a criminal defendant from engaging in purposeful discrimination on the grounds of race in the exercise of peremptory challenges." Id. (emphasis added)
. The Court stated:
Be it at the hands of the State or the defense, if a court allows jurors to be excluded because of group bias, it is a willing participant in a scheme that could only undermine the very foundation of our system of justice — our citizens' confidence in it. Just as public confidence in criminal justice is undermined by a conviction in a trial where racial discrimination has occurred in jury selection, so is public confidence undermined where a defendant, assisted by racially discriminatory peremptory strikes, obtains an acquittal. McCollum, 505 U.S. at-, 112 S.Ct. at 2354.
. The court of appeal stated:
The conclusion is inescapable: to allow a criminal defense attorney to violate equal protection rights of veniremen when even civil litigants'may not do so would not only be irrational, but would adversely affect the public's faith in the criminal justice system. The fact that the criminal defendant is in an adversary position with the state in a criminal trial is irrelevant to the rights of the prospective jurors the state is seeking to protect....
In short, the right to equal protection under the law applies to all citizens, despite the color of their skin. To allow the door of redress to swing only one way would create a mockery of our system of justice. White prospective jurors have just as much right to equal protection as do black prospective jurors, and discrimination against white persons is just as reprehensible a practice as is discrimination against black persons. To find otherwise would be illogical and would undermine the integrity of the criminal justice system....
[Therefore], upon remand, the district court must decide whether the state has shown a prima facie case of discrimination, which would then necessitate the articulation by the defense of racially neutral reasons for the strikes at issue all in accord with the procedure outlined in Batson.
State v. Knox, No. 91-KW-0874 c/w State v. Jackson, No. 91-KW-0990, slip op. at 4-5 (La. App. 1st Cir. July 30, 1991).