Title: Com. v. Woodall
Citation: 397 Pa. Super. 96, 579 A.2d 948
Docket Number: N/A
State: Pennsylvania
Issuer: Pennsylvania Supreme Court
Date: August 31, 1990

397 Pa. Superior Ct. 96 (1990) 579 A.2d 948 COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. Abraham WOODALL, Appellant. Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Argued May 9, 1990. Filed August 31, 1990. *97 Anne N. John, Uniontown, for appellant. Before WIEAND, DEL SOLE and HESTER, JJ. DEL SOLE, Judge. Abraham Woodall appeals from the judgment of sentence of two to five years imprisonment, consecutive to a sentence in a prior case, following conviction by a jury of receiving stolen goods based upon the sale of a stolen automobile. Appellant filed a Motion for a New Trial and In Arrest of Judgment claiming that the prosecution violated his constitutional right to a fair jury by exercising its peremptory challenge to exclude the sole black individual on the venire panel. On appeal, the Superior Court affirmed the judgment of sentence in part and remanded the case to the Common Pleas Court of Fayette County in order to determine whether the prosecuting attorney had a valid and neutral explanation for striking the juror. A hearing was held on the matter and the trial court concluded that the Commonwealth had a legitimate reason for striking the juror. Appellant's Motion for New Trial and In Arrest of Judgment upon remand was denied. We reverse. The issue is whether the trial court erred in its application of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S. Ct. 1712, 90 L. Ed. 2d 69 (1987), and by concluding that the Commonwealth had a valid, neutral explanation for striking the single black venireperson. We remanded this case to the trial court concluding that it erred in its conclusion that Appellant had failed to establish a prima facie case of discrimination under Batson, supra. We relied on Commonwealth v. Jones, 374 Pa.Super. 493, 543 A.2d 579 *98 (1988), allocator granted, 521 Pa. 610, 557 A.2d 342 (1989), which held that "the prosecution's use of a peremptory challenge to eliminate the only member of the defendant's race raises an inference of discrimination and entitles defendant to an explanation." Id. at 500, 543 A.2d at 582. Jones was not available to the trial court when it initially commenced this case. In Jones, during jury selection, the trial court permitted the prosecuting attorney to strike the only prospective black juror. The prosecution challenged the juror on the basis that she lived in the same town as the co-defendant's alibi witness, and, the community being close-knit, the juror or one of her ten children might know the witness. With the filing of post-trial motions, the trial court reconsidered its position deciding that the prosecutor's reasons for striking the juror were insufficient because the co-defendant's alibi witness was not a party or a witness in Jones' case; furthermore, another juror, a white male, who lived in the same town as the black juror, was not struck. We affirmed the trial court in Jones making the following statement: Instantly, since it has already been decided by this court that Appellant had established a prima facie case of discrimination in the process of selecting a jury by excluding the only black prospective juror in his case, we now focus on whether the Commonwealth has sustained its burden to come forward with a neutral explanation for challenging the black juror as required by Batson, 476 U.S. at 97, 98, 106 S. Ct. at 1723. *99 We are reminded by Commonwealth v. Jackson, 386 Pa.Super. 29, 562 A.2d 338 (1989) that our standard of review, in a case such as this, is limited. In Jackson, we stated that: As enumerated in Commonwealth v. Jackson, where it has been determined that the defendant has established a prima facie case of discrimination, the prosecution's explanation must satisfy certain minimal requirements to qualify as legally sufficient. We reiterate those requirements here: *100 In the present case, attorney David P. Reiss was called as a witness at the hearing to ascertain whether he could provide an explanation that would satisfy the three prong test set forth in Jackson. At this proceeding, Attorney Reiss responded to the Assistant District Attorney's questions as follows: Trial Court Opinion of October 26, 1989, pp. 2-3. Our first inquiry is whether the prosecutor's explanation was clear and reasonably specific. The explanation provided by Attorney Reiss for striking the juror contained various factors that he used when exercising peremptory challenges; however, he failed to give a clear, reasonably specific explanation for striking the only black juror in Mr. Woodall's case. In fact, Mr. Reiss did not provide any explanation whatsoever since, according to his testimony, he could not recall that a black person was even on the panel which makes this case easily distinguishable from Jackson. In that case, although the prosecutor was not asked for a racially neutral explanation for his strikes until four months after voir dire, he was still able to articulate legally sufficient *101 reasons for the challenges. The prosecutor used peremptory challenges to strike a man because his uncle had been arrested, another was struck because he appeared to be uncooperative and hostile during voir dire, one was struck because his employment kept him in contact with Philadelphia police officers and the last four were struck due to their familiarity with the area where the crime took place. We recognize that more than sixteen months elapsed since the voir dire proceeding at issue in this case and that such a delay is an impediment to the resolution of a Batson claim. See Jackson, 562 A.2d at 348. It should also be noted that the voir dire proceedings in this case were not transcribed. Commonwealth v. Woodall, 393 Pa.Super. 642, 564 A.2d 1009 (1989). We cannot, however, neglect to properly apply the standards set forth in Batson or Jackson because the prosecution failed to provide a valid, neutral explanation for striking the black juror. Race was not a factor mentioned by Attorney Reiss as one of the criteria that he used to strike a juror; nevertheless, precedent calls for a clear and reasonably specific explanation for the strike which was not present here. Second, the prosecutor's explanation must contain legitimate reasons for exercising the challenge. We encounter the same problem here as we did above. Since the prosecutor cannot recall the case or the black juror, he cannot articulate legitimate reasons for striking the juror in this particular case. Any of the above mentioned criteria referred to by the prosecutor during the hearing would suffice as a legitimate reason, but Attorney Reiss did not refer to any of these criteria with respect to the challenged juror in this case. The basis for the requirement of having legitimate reasons for striking a venireperson where the defendant has established a prima facie case of discrimination is very important and is well put in Batson: Since Appellee has not proffered any reason, legitimate or illegitimate, we shall examine the last prong of the test. Third, the prosecution's explanation must be rejected if it is pretextual. It would be difficult to consider the prosecutor's general statement of criteria for striking jurors pretextual. If the prosecutor had advanced a fictitious reason or motive to conceal the real reason for the strike then we would consider the explanation pretextual. Without an explanation pertaining to the strike in this case, we do not find that the prosecutor proffered a pretextual explanation for his actions. Thus, we conclude that the trial court erred by its determination that the prosecution provided a racially neutral explanation for striking the only black juror in this case. The prosecutor's testimony that he could not recall the juror in this matter will not satisfy the three prong test in Jackson. Therefore, we reverse and remand to the trial court for proceedings consistent with this decision.