Opinion ID: 2120964
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Supplementation of Record and Impartiality

Text: In a contention closely related to the preceding one, defendant argues that in 1987 the trial judge did not evaluate the legitimacy of the State's explanations for striking black venire members but heard them only to supplement the record. Defendant also argues that the presumption of the judge's fairness and impartiality is rebutted by the judge's 1982 characterization of some black venire members as bums, by his 1982 reference to Gay's race in explaining why he as a prosecutor might have wished to challenge her, and by his 1987 statement of uncertainty about whether Batson precludes a race-based challenge of a black venire member when the crime victim is white and the defendant black. Finally, defendant argues that the trial judge held race alone to be a proper basis for peremptory challenges and that this supposed holding failed to reflect an informed exercise of discretion or an application of the correct legal standard. We find no fault with the trial judge simply for characterizing the State's 1987 explanations as a supplementation of the record. In complying with our remand order and deciding defendant's claim of impermissible discrimination in jury selection, the judge was entitled to consider the 1982 record as well as the record of the 1987 hearing. Indeed, defendant himself tendered the 1982 transcript of proceedings (along with jury cards) to the judge as his entire 1987 evidentiary submission on the Batson issue. In that light, the State's explanations at the 1987 hearing can be said to have supplemented the 1982 record. Such a characterization does not imply that the judge was unwilling to evaluate the State's explanations anew. We are more concerned with those remarks by the judge that, according to defendant, rebut the presumption of impartiality. The bums comment alone, though coarse, provides little support for defendant's contention. At that point in the proceedings, only black venire members were at issue. Thus, the comment necessarily referred to certain unspecified black persons. We find nothing inherently race-specific in a reference to bums, nor any reason to believe that, if a group of white venire members had been at issue and had included individuals of a socioeconomic status or background similar to that of any black members to whom the judge was referring, the judge would not similarly have labeled them. The judge's 1982 reference to Gay's race and his 1987 expression of uncertainty about the scope of Batson are troubling, however. It is true that Batson forbids acceptance of prosecutorial explanations for challenges to black venire members if the explanations rely on assumptions that arise solely from the venire members' race, or on assumptions that the venire members would be biased in favor of a black defendant simply because of their common race. ( Batson, 476 U.S. at 97-98, 106 S.Ct. at 1723, 90 L.Ed.2d at 88.) Here, not only were defendant and the challenged venire members black, but also principal victims were white; and not only were Gay and defendant black, but also they were of similar ages. In other words, the defendant's and challenged venire members' common race in combination with certain other facts arguably supported the challenges at issue. Thus, through a naked parsing of Batson, it might be contended that such race-plus peremptory challenges are generally permissible, and were permissible in the present cause. Though to its credit the State makes no such Batson -based argument in support of the trial court's actual 1987 ruling on defendant's motion for a new trial, the State implicitly advances a similar theory to support validating the trial judge's 1982 comment on Gay's race. The State points out that Swain v. Alabama (1965), 380 U.S. 202, 85 S.Ct. 824, 13 L.Ed.2d 759, had not yet been modified by Batson and that Swain had relieved prosecutors of any duty to explain their reasons for particular peremptory challenges. The State therefore suggests that Swain may, at the time when the judge's 1982 comment was uttered, have legitimized the judge's race-plus reference to Gay's combined race, sex, and age. The State's suggestion is without merit. First, even if prosecutors did not have to explain peremptory challenges, it would not logically follow that admittedly race-based challenges were permissible or that a trial judge's implicit endorsement thereof was proper. Second, Swain specifically disapproved challenges that were overtly race-based (see Swain, 380 U.S. at 203-04, 85 S.Ct. at 826-27, 13 L.Ed.2d at 763-64), despite tolerating, for the sake of honoring the peremptory-challenge system, challenges that had an unspoken racial basis (see Swain, 380 U.S. at 220-21, 85 S.Ct. at 836, 13 L.Ed.2d at 772-73). (See also Batson, 476 U.S. at 101 n. , 106 S.Ct. at 1725 n. , 90 L.Ed.2d at 90 n.  (White, J., concurring) ( Swain would allow invalidation of challenge if prosecutorially volunteered explanation is race-based); Garrett v. Morris (8th Cir.1987), 815 F.2d 509, 511-13 (same); Weathersby v. Morris (9th Cir.1983), 708 F.2d 1493, 1496 (same); cf. Teague v. Lane (1989), 489 U.S. 288, 295-98, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 1067-68, 103 L.Ed.2d 334, 347 (declining, because of perceived Illinois procedural default and failure to show cause therefor and prejudice therefrom, to address merits of claim that Swain allowed examination of prosecutorially volunteered explanations for challenges); Teague, 489 U.S. at 323-26, 109 S.Ct. at 1082-83, 103 L.Ed.2d at 364-66 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and in the judgment) (expressing view that Illinois courts might consider petitioner's Swain claim as within fundamental-fairness exception to waiver rule on collateral review). But see Teague v. Lane (7th Cir.1987), 820 F.2d 832, 834 n. 6 ( en banc), aff'd on other grounds (1989), 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (stating that Swain barred equal protection challenge to strikes in a lone case even if they were shown to be based on race); United States v. Danzey (E.D.N.Y.1979), 476 F.Supp. 1065, aff'd without written opinion (2d Cir.1980), 620 F.2d 286 (stating that Swain barred review even of volunteered explanations).) Third, even assuming that Swain might have tolerated an explicitly race-based challenge (or a trial judge's approval of one), it is the trial judge's 1987 ruling, not any understanding of the law that he may have had in 1982, that is before us. Accordingly, whether he was legally right in 1982 does not settle the matter if his 1982 view had become incorrect under 1987 law and if we can say that in his 1987 ruling he relied on that wrong view of the law. At least by 1987, any view that consideration of a venire member's race could justify a prosecutor's peremptory challenge had become wrong. Some language in Batson does refer to peremptory challenges based simply or solely on race. But see Batson, 476 U.S. at 96-97, 106 S.Ct. at 1723, 90 L.Ed.2d at 87-88 (referring more broadly to exclusion on account of race). However, we reject any notion that Batson offers solace to prosecutors who explain challenges on race-plus grounds. Our chief reason is simple: The race-plus concept is largely illusory in the context of a Batson hearing. If black venire members' disparate treatment as compared to that of similarly situated white persons is alleged, then it is insufficient or even self-defeating for a prosecutor to explain that a black venire member's race plus another factor motivated the challenge. Such an explanation will not, of itself, justify the allegedly disparate treatment, since the reference to race will leave unanswered how it was proper to challenge the black but not a comparable white venire member. On the other hand, if a prosecutor adequately explains the challenge of a black venire member by distinguishing on nonracial grounds an allegedly comparable and unchallenged white venire memberor even if the prosecutor resorts to relying on the nonspecific possibility that in some other respect the white juror was desirable, and then secures a favorable trial-court ruling to which we generally show great deference (see People v. Young (1989), 128 Ill.2d 1, 23-24, 131 Ill.Dec. 78, 538 N.E.2d 453)the prosecutor's explanation will not have depended on the illusory race-plus concept after all. Furthermore, if a prosecutor's explanation is really so limited as to make citation of the challenged venire member's race essential to the explanation's coherence, then the explanation can truly be said to rest solely or simply on the racial factor for otherwise, stripped of the racial underpinning, it would effectively not have been a sufficient explanation at all and would have failed to rebut a Batson prima facie case. Either way, therefore, Batson cannot be viewed as permitting the trial judge or the State to explain Gay's challenge by actually relying on her race, even as one of several factors. This conclusion is buttressed by characterizations of Batson in later cases. (See Holland v. Illinois (1990), 493 U.S. ___, ___, 110 S.Ct. 803, 811, 107 L.Ed.2d 905, 920 (systematic exclusion of blacks from jury system is obviously unlawful); Holland, 493 U.S. at ___, 110 S.Ct. at 811, 107 L.Ed.2d at 921 (Kennedy, J., concurring) (excluding juror on the basis of race is constitutional violation); People v. Harris (1989), 129 Ill.2d 123, 174, 135 Ill. Dec. 861, 544 N.E.2d 357 (assumption of sympathy because of shared race is impermissible); cf. Wilkerson v. Texas (1989), ___ U.S. ___, ___, 110 S.Ct. 292, 293-95, 107 L.Ed.2d 272, 273-75 (Marshall, J., joined by Brennan, J., dissenting from denial of cert. ) (race-plus explanations do not satisfy Batson requirement of neutral explanations).) Given the fact that other young, female, but white venire members went unchallenged by the State, the State does not persuade by now arguing that the trial judge's reference to Gay as a black lady might have been merely incidental to his consideration of her sex and age as components of some sexual attraction toward defendant. Accordingly, it would be improper for us to approve such a judicially volunteered 1982 explanation if, as the State seemingly would permit, we imputed it to the prosecutors as a basis for their 1987 explanations at the Batson hearing. But the prosecutors' own 1987 explanations, based on Gay's crime-victim experience and her arguably equivocal answers at voir dire, provided adequate independent grounds for the trial judge to find in 1987 that the challenge to Gay was based on nonracial factors. And we cannot say that the judge's expressed 1982 concern about Gay's and defendant's race, or his 1987 uncertainty about the role of race in justifying peremptory challenges, though legally erroneous, rebutted the presumption of his impartiality. A judge can be wrong without being partial. For these reasons, and given the deference we show to trial courts' Batson findings, defendant has not shown that he was prejudiced by any race-based surplusage in the trial judge's volunteered 1982 explanation of Gay's challenge, however improper it was. Nor has defendant shown that the trial judge lacked impartiality or that he failed in 1987 to assess defendant's Batson claim. Defendant is also incorrect in arguing that the trial judge held that Batson allowed race alone to be the basis of peremptory challenges. Though the trial judge demonstrated an incomplete understanding of evolving and complex Batson law in not sufficiently recognizing racial motivations as discriminatory, his expression of uncertainty did not constitute the holding that defendant alleges. And the trial judge's discretion in finding no racial discrimination against Gay was sufficiently informed, because articulated reasons of crime victimization and equivocation adequately supported his finding.