Title: Ex Parte Dysart
Citation: 581 So. 2d 545
Docket Number: 1900763
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: May 10, 1991

581 So. 2d 545 (1991)
Ex parte Samuel L. DYSART.
(Re Samuel L. Dysart v. State of Alabama).
1900763.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
May 10, 1991.
David A. Simon, Bay Minette, for appellant.
James H. Evans, Atty. Gen., for appellee.
Prior report: Ala.Cr.App., 581 So. 2d 541.
*546 HOUSTON, Justice.
WRIT DENIED.
HORNSBY, C.J., and ALMON, SHORES, STEAGALL, KENNEDY and INGRAM, JJ., concur.
MADDOX and ADAMS, JJ., dissent.
MADDOX, Justice (dissenting).
The Court of Criminal Appeals, with one Judge dissenting, has held that the rule of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S. Ct. 1712, 90 L. Ed. 2d 69 (1986), does not apply to a prosecutor's use of peremptory strikes to exclude women from jury service.
The Court of Criminal Appeals cites in support of its conclusion the case of United States v. Hamilton, 850 F.2d 1038 (4th Cir.1988) (Murnaghan, J., dissenting); cert. dismissed sub nom. Washington v. United States, 489 U.S. 1094, 109 S. Ct. 1564, 103 L. Ed. 2d 931 (1989), and several state cases. Those cases do hold that gender-based peremptory challenges do not offend any provision of the United States Constitution, but I think the better reasoned view on the constitutional issue of purposeful gender discrimination is contained in United States v. DeGross, 913 F.2d 1417 (9th Cir. 1990), in which the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, although recognizing that the Fourth Circuit, in Hamilton, had reached a different conclusion, squarely held that the Fifth Amendment's equal protection principles prohibited gender-based peremptory challenges.[1]
The reasoning of DeGross is so cogent that I quote from that case extensively:
913 F.2d  at 1421-23.
I think that the Court of Criminal Appeals erred in concluding that the state may engage in purposeful gender discrimination in the exercise of its peremptory challenges. Consequently, I would grant the writ in this case.
[1]  In Hamilton, the court had discussed the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, but that case involved a federal prosecution. However, as pointed out in footnote 7 of DeGross, 913 F.2d  at 1421, while Batson involved a state defendant, the Batson principle is applicable to federal prosecutions under the Fifth Amendment's due process clause.