Opinion ID: 800764
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Milton Pickett

Text: And then there is Milton Pickett. The ASA testified that he exercised a strike on Pickett because his wife was a teacher. The ASA said he rarely accepted jurors that are teachers or spouses of teachers. He explained that teachers often are very sympathetic and want to give people, especially young people, the benefit of the doubt. He added that teachers often ask questions that go beyond the law and tend to second guess some of the strictures that the court places on them. But the ASA also said that his main reason for striking Pickett was not because he was married to a teacher, but because there was a colloquy between the trial judge and Pickett in which Pickett said he was friends with a lawyer who was a city councilman (in Evanston, Illinois). The ASA stated that the judge identified the friend (Fred Alexander), and Pickett seemed impressed that the judge recognized or knew the person he had mentioned. The ASA continued by saying that he did not know the lawyer-councilman or his politics and thought it best, based on this lack of knowledge as well as a lack of information about the importance of this friend in Pickett's life, to exercise a peremptory challenge on Pickett. The ASA could have asked the trial judge who was conducting the voir dire to question Pickett about the significance of the friend and the friend's politics, if the ASA truly was concerned about those matters. The record reveals that after the judge questioned Pickett and 8 other venirepersons, he called the lawyers up to the bench and had a conversation off the record. We do not know what was said, but we do know that immediately after that conversation, the judge put an additional question to 4 of the prospective jurors under consideration. At the Batson hearing, the trial judge found that although he generally asked the questions during voir dire, this wouldn't preclude either side from tendering questions, but neither side generally did, and in Harris's case specifically, neither side did. The Illinois Supreme Court observed that asking prospective jurors further questions can threaten to taint the entire venire through the disclosure of sensitive information and can unnecessarily lengthen an already long process, Harris II, 207 Ill.Dec. 400, 647 N.E.2d at 899, concerns it found legitimate, id. Even so, the prosecutors had a perfect opportunity to ask the trial judge to put further questions to Pickett about his lawyer-councilman friend, but didn't do so. This may suggest that this justification for striking Pickett was merely a pretext for discrimination. See Miller-El II, 545 U.S. at 246, 125 S.Ct. 2317 (expressing disbelief about the proffered reason for the strike and noting that the prosecution asked nothing further about the ... [issue], as it probably would have done if the [issue] had actually mattered). Further evidence of pretext is found in the other justifications given by the prosecution. The ASA stated that Pickett was self-employed as a barber, and while in trial would have a loss of income. In Snyder, the prosecutor attempted to justify striking an African American on the ground that the prosecutor was concerned that the prospective juror was a student teacher and might be motivated to find the defendant guilty of a lesser-included offense so to avoid a penalty phase and minimize the classes missed. 552 U.S. at 478-80, 128 S.Ct. 1203. The Court found this explanation pretextual for several reasons, including that once the juror was informed that the dean would work with him to make up any missed student-teaching time, the record did not suggest that the juror remained concerned about jury service. Id. at 482-83, 128 S.Ct. 1203. Pickett's juror card indicated that he was employed by Baxter Travenol and listed his occupation as lift driver. During voir dire, he testified that he drove a forklift from 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and worked as a barber from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Pickett never expressed any concern that jury service would cause him a loss of income or otherwise interfere with his work obligations, either as a barber or forklift driver. Under these circumstances, it was unreasonable to credit the loss-of-income reason for striking Pickett. [3] And there's more. The ASA justified his strike of Pickett by noting that his wife was a teacher. As noted, the ASA claimed that he usually did not accept jurors that are teachers or spouses of teachers and gave a few reasons why he did not like having them as jurors. These same reasons should have given him reason to strike Folan, a teacher, and Najdowski, a former teacher, both non-African Americans. Respondent argues that Folan is not an appropriate comparator because the State had exercised all of its peremptory strikes by the time she was under consideration. As noted, the Illinois Supreme Court so found. See Harris I, 135 Ill.Dec. 861, 544 N.E.2d at 382. But, as addressed above, this finding was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts. Our review of the record reveals no possible explanation for the patent inconsistency in the State's exclusion of African Americans because they or their spouses were teachers and its acceptance of non-African American teachers and former teachers. [4] Thus, the fact that the State didn't strike Folan and Najdowski is evidence of pretext and discrimination. See, e.g., Miller-El II, 545 U.S. at 241, 125 S.Ct. 2317 ([I]f a [party's] proffered reason for striking [a prospective juror of one race] applies just as well to an otherwise-similar [juror of a different race] who is permitted to serve, that is evidence tending to prove purposeful discrimination[.]). The Illinois court failed to consider the fact that the teacher reason offered by the State for striking Pickett applied equally to Folan and Najdowski. See Harris II, 207 Ill.Dec. 400, 647 N.E.2d at 900; Harris I, 135 Ill.Dec. 861, 544 N.E.2d at 383-85. Yet this was a relevant circumstance that should have been given due weight by the court in deciding whether to credit the prosecutor's proffered reason for striking Pickett. In the absence of some explanation for this difference in treatment of like jurors of different races, the conclusion that the proffered reason was a pretext for purposeful discrimination becomes inescapable. The state court unreasonably accepted the race-neutral reasons for the strike of Pickett.