Case Name: State of Wisconsin, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Calvin Gregory, Defendant-Appellant
Court: Wisconsin Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: Wisconsin
Decision Date: 2001-04-05
Citations: 244 Wis. 2d 65
Docket Number: No. 00-0961-CR
Parties: State of Wisconsin, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Calvin Gregory, Defendant-Appellant.
Judges: Before Vergeront, Roggensack and Deininger, JJ.
Reporter: Wisconsin Reports Second
Volume: 244
Pages: 65–85

Head Matter:
State of Wisconsin, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Calvin Gregory, Defendant-Appellant.
Court of Appeals
No. 00-0961-CR.
Submitted on briefs December 7, 2000.
Decided April 5, 2001.
2001 WI App 107
(Also reported in 630 N.W.2d 711.)
On behalf of the defendant-appellant, the cause was submitted on the briefs of Meredith J. Ross, Clinical Associate Professor, of the University of Wisconsin Law School of Madison.
On behalf of the plaintiff-respondent, the cause was submitted on the brief of James E. Doyle, attorney general, and Chris R. Larsen, assistant attorney general.
Before Vergeront, Roggensack and Deininger, JJ.
Petition to review denied.

Opinion:
ROGGENSACK, J.
¶ 1. Because the circuit court's finding that Calvin Gregory failed to prove the prosecutor's use of a peremptory strike to remove a juror was an act of purposeful racial discrimination is not clearly erroneous, we affirm the judgment.
BACKGROUND
¶ 2. Gregory was charged with possession of heroin with intent to deliver, within 1,000 feet of a school, as a repeater; the operation of a drug house, as a repeater; possession of cocaine, as a repeater; and felony bail jumping, as a repeater. After the jury was selected, but before its members were sworn, Gregory, who is African-American, challenged the prosecutor's use of a peremptory strike to remove the sole African-American juror, Dondre Eugene Bell. The circuit court immediately held a hearing on Gregory's challenge. Counsel for Gregory accused the prosecutor of using a peremptory challenge to remove all African-Americans from the jury, and the State gave its reasons for the strike. Thereafter, the circuit court found that Gregory had not proved the State's removal of Bell was racially motivated. The jury was recalled and sworn.
¶ 3. After a guilty verdict was returned to counts one and two and a not guilty verdict to count three, Gregory pled to bail jumping. Subsequent to sentencing, Gregory filed a notice of intent to pursue postconviction relief. One of his challenges, and the issue central to this appeal, is whether the circuit court erred in failing to grant his Batson challenge to the prosecutor's peremptory strike of the sole African-American juror. Gregory asked the court to schedule a postconviction evidentiary hearing so that he could cross-examine the prosecuting attorney and an assistant district attorney who also had used a peremptory strike to remove Bell in an earlier criminal case. The State argued that a Batson challenge must be decided solely upon the record developed in voir dire and on the responses given at the hearing held before the jury was sworn.
¶ 4. On hearing Gregory's postconviction motions, the circuit court agreed with the State and declined to hold a postconviction evidentiary hearing. Instead, it reviewed the record made during voir dire and the State's responses at the Batson hearing. It also allowed the parties to file written proffers of evidence showing what they would have sought to prove if an evidentiary hearing had been held. The circuit court reaffirmed its finding that Gregory had not made a successful Batson challenge, and this appeal followed.
DISCUSSION
Standard of Review.
¶ 5. We review the circuit court's finding of whether the prosecutor had the discriminatory intent necessary to support a challenge under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), as a finding of historic fact, which we will not overturn unless it is clearly erroneous. Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. 352, 369 (1991).
Batson Challenge.
¶ 6. It is a violation of a defendant's right to equal protection of the law for the State to use a peremptory challenge to remove a potential juror from the venire solely because of race. Batson, 476 U.S. at 84. A defendant's challenge to the State's use of peremptory strikes to deliberately remove jurors from the venire because of race was initially addressed by the United States Supreme Court in Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202 (1965), where the Court held that systematic exclusion violated African-American defendants' rights to equal protection of the law. Id. at 223. Batson expanded the holding of Swain because it concluded that an individual defendant is denied equal protection of the law when the State uses peremptory challenges to purposefully exclude potential jurors from the petit jury for that defendant solely because they are members of the same race as the defendant. Batson, 476 U.S. at 84.
¶ 7. Batson established that in order to make a successful challenge to the composition of a petit jury, a defendant must prove "purposeful discrimination." Id. at 93. In so doing, a defendant may rely on direct and circumstantial evidence of invidious intent, including proof of disproportionate impact. Id. In meeting this burden, a defendant first must make a prima facie showing that the State acted with discriminatory intent. To do so, a defendant should establish that he is a member "of a cognizable racial group" and that the prosecutor has exercised peremptory challenges to remove members of the defendant's race from the venire. Id. at 96. In making his case, a defendant is entitled to rely on the fact that peremptory challenges can be used as a jury selection practice to discriminate based on race, by those who intend to do so. Id. Some courts have created a bright-line rule whereby a defendant can make a prima facie case simply by showing that the prosecutor has used peremptory strikes to remove all members of the defendant's race from the jury, even if only one strike is required. Wisconsin has declined to adopt such a bright-line rule. State v. Walker, 154 Wis. 2d 158, 174 n.7, 453 N.W.2d 127, 133 n.7 (1990). "Finally, the defendant must show that these facts and any other relevant circumstances raise an inference that the prosecutor used that practice to exclude the veniremen from the petit jury on account of their race." Batson, 476 U.S. at 96. This combination of factors raiseg the necessary inference of "purposeful discrimination." Id.
¶ 8. Once a defendant has made a prima facie case, then the burden shifts to the State to refute the inference of discriminatory intent. Id. at 97. The State's rebuttal does not need to be sufficient to justify a challenge for cause. Id. However, a prosecutor may not rebut a defendant's prima facie case simply by stating that he thought that because the juror and the defendant were of the same race, the juror would be sympathetic to the defendant's position. Id. Furthermore, a prosecutor may not rebut a defendant's prima facie case simply by denying that he had a discriminatory motive, but rather, the prosecutor "must articulate a neutral explanation related to the particular case to be tried." Id. at 98. If the State does so, then the circuit court has the duty to weigh the credibility of the testimony and determine whether purposeful discrimination has been established. Id. As part of this third step, a defendant may show that the reasons proffered by the State are pretexts for racial discrimination. Walker, 154 Wis. 2d at 176 n.11, 453 N.W.2d at 134 n.11.
¶ 9. At the hearing outside of the presence of the jury, and without ruling whether Gregory had made a prima facie case under Batson of purposeful discrimination, the court asked the prosecutor to explain why he struck Bell. The prosecutor said that he had several reasons: First, he had asked whether any juror had "police come to their residence for any type of complaint or to make an arrest or what have you." Bell responded, "They came to our office before to check out they had a burglary." He mentioned nothing about any police contacts at his residence. However, the prosecutor had received information from another assistant district attorney that police had responded to 1216 Wisconsin Avenue, Bell's residence, seventeen times between January 1996 and October 1998. Therefore, he said he believed that Bell was not being truthful in the answers he gave to the questions posed. Second, the prosecutor had also been told that one of those contacts involved a complaint of cocaine dealing, which information he found consistent with his recollection that Bell had said he had an uncle who had been "arrested for cocaine, some type of cocaine offense." Third, he was aware that a man named Christopher Bell had been arrested by federal agents in one of the largest cocaine dealing rings in Rock County, and he was concerned that Christopher Bell was the uncle that Bell had referred to during voir dire. And fourth, Bell lived close to the address where it was alleged that Gregory operated a drug house and therefore might be familiar with those who frequented it. Based on those concerns, the prosecutor concluded that the State's interests would be best served by striking Bell.
¶ 10. After hearing this explanation, counsel for Gregory said he could not refute the prosecutor's statements, as some of his reasons were not part of the record. However, he did not seek a brief adjournment to verify any of the prosecutor's factual assertions. Accordingly, without determining whether a prima facie case had been made in the first instance, the court found that based on the record before it, Gregory's Bat-son challenge must be denied because Gregory had not proved purposeful discrimination. Walker, 154 Wis. 2d at 156, 453 N.W.2d at 134.
¶ 11. In motions after verdict, Gregory resumed his Batson challenge and requested an evidentiary hearing, for which he made sizeable proffers of evidence which he argued showed: that Bell was unaware of all the police contacts at his residence; that Bell was unrelated to Christopher Bell; and that Bell had answered the questions during voir dire truthfully. The circuit court determined that an evidentiary hearing was unnecessary and that the Batson challenge had to be decided based on what the prosecutor believed when he struck Bell. We agree with the circuit court.
¶ 12. Batson requires that jurors not be struck because they are African-Americans. Batson, 476 U.S. at 84. It does not require that African-American defendants have African-American jurors. See Walker, 154 Wis. 2d at 174 n.7, 453 N.W.2d at 133 n.7. Here, the prosecutor listed numerous racially neutral reasons specifically related to Gregory's trial: (1) his concern about Bell's truthfulness in answering questions during voir dire, (2) family members who had some relationship to cocaine, a drug Gregory was accused of possessing, (3) close proximity to the alleged drug house, and (4) a concern that the uncle to whom Bell referred could have been recently arrested for significant involvement with drug trafficking. While it is true that the prosecutor did not verify much of the information on which he relied, there was no showing made by Gregory, either at the Batson hearing or at motions after verdict, that tends to prove those reasons were a pretext for racial discrimination.
¶ 13. Courts have routinely held that striking a juror because he or she lived in close proximity to some witness or evidence in the case to be tried is a race-neutral reason. United States v. Briscoe, 896 F.2d 1476, 1488-89 (7th Cir. 1990) (removal of an African-American venireperson who lived near two witnesses was race-neutral); United States v. Williams, 936 F.2d 1243, 1247 (11th Cir. 1991) (collecting cases upholding peremptory challenges based on geographical relationship between facts of the case to be tried and the venireperson). Courts also have upheld peremptory strikes based on a familial relationship to individuals involved in the criminal justice system. United States v. Johnson, 941 F.2d 1102, 1109 (10th Cir. 1991) (upholding strike of an African-American juror because family member was convicted of a crime and family history suggested disregard for the law); United States v. Bennett, 928 F.2d 1548, 1551 (11th Cir. 1991) (strike upheld due to prior family involvement with drug-related offenses). Accordingly, we conclude that the circuit court's finding that Gregory had failed to show that the prosecutor excluded Bell from the jury because both he and Gregory are African-Americans is not clearly erroneous.
¶ 14. Additionally, we also conclude that a post-conviction evidentiary hearing was properly denied because a circuit court's decision on a Batson challenge must be made before the jury is sworn. Furthermore, none of the proffers provided proof that was relevant to the prosecutor's intent when he struck Bell. For exam- pie, none of the documents showed the prosecutor had not been told what he represented to the court in the Batson hearing or that he knew any of the information he said he relied on was inaccurate. Instead, most of the materials focused on whether the information he was given was accurate. However, when attempting to prove the reasons given by the prosecutor were pretex-tual, the focus must be on what the prosecutor knew about the potential juror when he made the strike. Williams v. Chrans, 957 F.2d 487, 491 (7th Cir. 1992). Therefore, if a defendant is attempting to prove the prosecutor's reasons for the strike were pretextual, a defendant must show either that the prosecutor intentionally misrepresented the facts he said he relied on or that he had been told those facts but he knew they were erroneous. Stated another way, even if we were to assume, arguendo, that the prosecutor relied on inaccurate information, it does not necessarily follow that the prosecutor had the intent required to sustain a finding of purposeful discrimination. Here, what Gregory sought to prove by his proffers at the postconviction hearing was not relevant to the prosecutor's intent when he struck Bell. See State v. Toliver, 187 Wis. 2d 346, 358, 523 N.W.2d 113, 117 (Ct. App. 1994). And finally, if counsel for the defense réquired additional information in order to challenge the prosecutor's statements in the Batson hearing, he should have requested a brief adjournment at that time, fully explaining what he needed and why he needed it in order to complete the Batson hearing. No adjournment was requested here. Therefore, for all the reasons set forth above, we affirm the judgment of the circuit court.
CONCLUSION
¶ 15. Because the circuit court's finding that Gregory failed to prove the prosecutor's use of a peremptory strike to remove a juror was an act of purposeful racial discrimination is not clearly erroneous, we affirm the judgment of the circuit court.
By the Court. — Judgment affirmed.
The circuit court denied Gregory's challenge by simply saying, "So I will deny your motion." Because the circuit court was required to find the prosecutor had discriminatory intent in order to grant the motion, Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. 352, 369 (1991), we conclude that its denial of the motion demon strated that it did not find the requisite discriminatory intent. Additionally, the court clarified in the hearing on Gregory's postconviction motions that it had found the prosecutor's explanation at the initial hearing race-neutral.
Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986).
The proffers are part of the record on appeal, and we have reviewed them.
Much earlier, the Supreme Court had held that the State denies African-American defendants equal protection of the law when African-Americans are purposefully excluded from jury service. Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303, 306-07 (1880).
United, States v. Chalan, 812 F.2d 1302 (10th Cir. 1987); Stanley v. State, 542 A.2d 1267 (Md. 1988); Pearson v. State, 514 So. 2d 374 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1987).
Contrary to the assumption of the dissent, we do not assume that the circuit court had found Gregory had made a prima facie case.
Actually, Bell said he had an uncle who had used cocaine. Gregory makes much of this error in his brief, but he did not raise it during the Batson hearing before the jury was sworn. Therefore, we conclude it is not significant for this appeal. See State v. Waites, 158 Wis. 2d 376, 380, 462 N.W.2d 206, 207 (1990).
Contrary to Gregory's argument on appeal, the prosecutor did not say that he struck Bell because of the neighborhood in which he resided. Therefore, the concern addressed in United States v. Briscoe, 896 F.2d 1476, 1488 (7th Cir. 1990), that striking a juror based on his neighborhood could be a pretext for striking the juror based on his race, is not present here.