Case Name: Gerardo PLAZA, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1997-09-10
Citations: 699 So. 2d 289
Docket Number: No. 96-2199
Parties: Gerardo PLAZA, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Judges: Before JORGENSON and SORONDO, JJ., and BARKDULL, Senior Judge.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 699
Pages: 289–294

Head Matter:
Gerardo PLAZA, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 96-2199.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.
Sept. 10, 1997.
Bennett H. Brummer, Public Defender, and Louis K. Nicholas, II, Special Assistant Public Defender, for appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, and Douglas Gurnic, Assistant Attorney General, and Emma Savadier, Legal Intern, for appellee.
Before JORGENSON and SORONDO, JJ., and BARKDULL, Senior Judge.

Opinion:
PER CURIAM.
Defendant appeals from judgments of conviction and sentences for first degree murder, armed burglary, and armed robbery. We affirm.
During jury selection, the State exercised four peremptory challenges on prospective female jurors. Each State challenge occasioned a separate defense objection based upon gender discrimination. When the defense objected to one particular strike, the court stated:
I am not going to even turn to the State. I am making a record why I'm not turning to the State. It is true that . she's a recovering alcoholic, as she testified, for three weeks.
The court allowed the strike, after further finding that no other juror against whom the State exercised a peremptory challenge was a recovering alcoholic. The defense objected.
On appeal, the defendant argues that the four peremptory strikes made by the State of female venire members were impermissibly based on gender, and that the trial court failed to consider the totality of the record when allowing those strikes. In addition, the defendant argues that the trial court erred in failing to conduct any Neil inquiry when the defense challenged the State's peremptory strike of the recovering alcoholic.
We find no deficiency in the trial court's conduct of the Neil inquiries. The court considered the State's specific reasons for the strikes, and properly found them to be gender neutral.
Additionally, we find no error in the trial court's efficient and thorough elucidation of the gender-neutral reason supporting the State's peremptory strike of the venire member who was a recovering alcoholic. The trial court was in the midst of a series of exhaustive Neil inquiries in which the defense challenged the State's peremptory strikes and the court properly required a gender-neutral explanation. We see no reason to shackle the court in its conduct of voir dire by requiring that it first ask for, and then await the State's explanation for a strike. If the record clearly supports the gender-neutral reason for a peremptory strike, and the trial court properly articulates that reason, there is no error in allowing the strike. See State v. Holiday, 682 So.2d 1092 (Fla.1996) (based upon review of entire record of voir due concerning particular juror, court will not overturn trial court's determination of propriety of peremptory strike); Melbourne v. State, 679 So.2d 759 (Fla.1996) (trial court's assessment of credibility of reasons for strike will be affirmed unless clearly erroneous).
"The right to an impartial jury guaranteed by article I, section 16, is best safeguarded not by an arcane maze of reversible error traps, but by reason and common sense." Melbourne, 679 So.2d at 765. It defies reason and makes no sense to require a trial court, when it is engaged in the proper and thorough rigors of a Neil inquiry, to await a neutral explanation for a strike that is readily apparent from the record before articulating that explanation on the record. "The law does not require futile acts." Hoshaw v. State, 533 So.2d 886, 887 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988).
AFFIRMED.
JORGENSON, J, and BARKDULL, Senior Judge, concur.
. The court was referring here by name to one of the challenged female jurors.