Opinion ID: 3063660
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: Collie participated in the armed robbery of a truck owned by the United Postal Service and the kidnapping of its driver. After the authorities arrested Collie, the driver of the truck identified Collie as one of his assailants, and Collie admitted his involvement in the crimes. Collie was charged by information for four crimes: armed carjacking, display of a weapon during the commission of a felony, armed kidnapping, and burglary of an occupied conveyance. 2 During voir dire, the prosecutor questioned a member of the venire, Jean Baptiste, about his recent graduation from high school, lack of employment, and future plans. Baptiste responded negatively when the prosecutor asked him if Collie’s youth would “play a role” in Baptiste’s verdict. When Baptiste was asked by the prosecutor what his verdict would be if the State proved Collie’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, Baptiste responded equivocally, but when the trial court asked Baptiste a similar question, he stated he would find Collie guilty. The trial court advised Collie to consult with his counsel about the venire. After a break, the trial court asked Collie if he had “sufficient time to go over the jurors with [his] attorney,” and Collie responded affirmatively. The trial court seated six jurors, after which the judge asked Collie if he was “in agreement with those six,” and he responded affirmatively. The prosecutor and defense counsel then used backstrikes to seat two alternate jurors. After the trial court seated one alternate juror, the prosecutor challenged Baptiste for cause. The trial court denied the challenge for cause but allowed the prosecutor to use a peremptory challenge against Baptiste. The trial court seated the next individual on the list as the second alternate juror. After defense counsel stated that he would “accept that,” the trial court asked Collie to consider the six petit jurors and two alternates and, before they were sworn, to state any objection 3 that he had to those jurors. When asked by the trial court, Collie confirmed that he was “in agreement” with the jurors. Collie was convicted of armed carjacking, armed kidnapping, and burglary of an occupied conveyance and sentenced to twenty-five years of imprisonment. The state appellate court affirmed Collie’s convictions and sentences summarily. Collie filed pro se in Florida court a motion for post-conviction relief. See Fla. R. Crim. P. 3.850. Collie argued that his trial counsel was ineffective for “fail[ing] to object to the state’s peremptory strike of a black juror without giving non-racial reasons for doing so.” Collie alleged that the “prosecution did not want [Baptiste] on the jury,” Collie “liked Mr. Baptiste,” and counsel should have objected to the challenge and “force[d] the court to request non-racial reasons for the strike[.]” The trial court denied Collie’s motion. The court ruled that Collie failed to “allege[] that the challenge was, in fact, racially motivated.” The court cited Cook v. State, 792 So. 2d 1197 (Fla. 2001), where the Supreme Court of Florida rejected a collateral attack on trial counsel’s failure to object to the removal of two AfricanAmerican prospective jurors because the petitioner failed to allege a racial motivation for the removal. The trial court found that Collie “agreed to the panel that was chosen and sworn to hear the evidence” in his case and concluded that 4 Collie could not “now complain simply because they did not return the verdict he had hoped for.” Collie appealed, and the state appellate court affirmed summarily. Collie filed a federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus and repeated his argument that trial counsel was ineffective. Collie alleged that he “indicated he wanted . . . Baptiste on his jury”; Collie was “dismayed” when counsel failed to object to the peremptory challenge by the state; and that omission by counsel “resulted in [Collie’s] loss of his constitutional right to be tried by a jury of his peers.” A magistrate judge recommended that the district court deny Collie’s petition. The magistrate judge concluded that trial counsel was “not ineffective for failing to object to the prosecutor’s action” because “the record . . . did not demonstrate that Baptiste was stricken because he was African American” and Collie had “come forward with no evidence in the state court or [the] collateral proceeding that the prosecutor exercised his peremptory challenge against Baptiste because he was an African American.” The magistrate judge found that the state “had legitimate, race-neutral concerns regarding Baptiste,” and cited the concerns of the prosecutor that Baptiste would be “sympathetic” to Collie “because of the similarity in their ages, and the fact that Baptiste had stated he would have a difficult time convicting” Collie. The magistrate judge also concluded that Collie 5 was not prejudiced by the failure of trial counsel to preserve the Batson objection for review on appeal because an objection by counsel to the peremptory challenge would have lacked merit, and the decision of the state court to deny Collie’s postconviction motion was “factually reasonable and in accord with . . . federal principles.” The district court adopted the findings and recommendation of the magistrate judge. “Based on [its] review of the record, the Report and Recommendation, [Collie’s] Objection, and the entire case file,” the district court concluded that Collie failed to “establish[] the necessary elements of a claim for ineffective assistance of counsel.”