Opinion ID: 70479
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Standards for a Batson Inquiry

Text: The Equal Protection Clause forbids a prosecutor from challenging potential jurors solely on account of their race. Batson, 476 U.S. at 89. Batson outlined a three-step process for evaluating claims that a prosecutor used peremptory challenges in a manner that violated the Equal Protection Clause: (1) a defendant must make a prima facie showing that the prosecutor has exercised his peremptory challenges on the basis of race; (2) the burden then shifts to the prosecutor to articulate a race-neutral reason for striking the juror in question; and (3) the trial court must determine whether the defendant has carried his burden of proving purposeful discrimination. Snyder, 128 S. Ct. at 1207. The Supreme Court explained the third step in the following manner: Step three of the Batson inquiry involves an evaluation of the prosecutor’s credibility, and the best evidence of discriminatory intent often will be the demeanor of the attorney who exercises the challenge. In addition, race-neutral reasons for peremptory challenges often invoke a juror’s demeanor (e.g., nervousness, 5 Case: 08-10057 Document: 00511007241 Page: 6 Date Filed: 01/19/2010 No. 08-10057 inattention), making the trial court’s first-hand observations of even greater importance. Id. at 1208 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). The ultimate conclusion of discriminatory intent is a factual finding. Ladd v. Cockrell, 311 F.3d 349, 356 (5th Cir. 2002). “[T]he critical question in determining whether a prisoner has proved purposeful discrimination at step three is the persuasiveness of the prosecutor’s justification for his peremptory strike. At this stage, implausible or fantastic justifications may (and probably will) be found to be pretexts for purposeful discrimination.” Miller-El I, 537 U.S. at 338-39 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). “[T]he ultimate inquiry for the judge is not whether counsel’s reason is suspect, or weak, or irrational, but whether counsel is telling the truth in his or her assertion that the challenge is not race-based.” United States v. Bentley-Smith, 2 F.3d 1368, 1375 (5th Cir. 1993). The “decisions of this court have made it plain that the process of choosing a jury may be influenced by the ‘intuitive assumptions’ of the attorneys.” Id. at 1374. “We have recognized that these determinations of credibility and demeanor lie peculiarly within a trial judge’s province, and we have stated that in the absence of exceptional circumstances, we would defer to [the trial court].” Snyder, 128 S. Ct. at 1208 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). When reviewing a Batson ruling, because “all of the circumstances that bear upon the issue of racial animosity must be consulted,” this court may consider the strike of one juror for any relevance it might have regarding the strike of another juror. Id. Our review is further informed by various post-Batson Supreme Court decisions. In Miller-El II, a Texas defendant sought federal habeas corpus relief on the ground that the trial court should have sustained his objection to the prosecutor’s discriminatory use of peremptory strikes against African-American jurors. 545 U.S. at 236-37. The Supreme Court conducted “side-by-side 6 Case: 08-10057 Document: 00511007241 Page: 7 Date Filed: 01/19/2010 No. 08-10057 comparisons of some black venire panelists who were struck and white panelists allowed to serve.” Id. at 241. The Court noted that “[i]f a prosecutor’s proffered reason for striking a black panelist applies just as well to an otherwise-similar nonblack who is permitted to serve, that is evidence tending to prove purposeful discrimination to be considered at Batson’s third step.” Id. The Miller-El II majority rejected the dissent’s assertion that “‘similarly situated’ does not mean matching any one of several reasons the prosecution gave for striking a potential juror-it means matching all of them.” Id. at 247 n.6. The majority stated: None of our cases announces [sic] a rule that no comparison is probative unless the situation of the individuals compared is identical in all respects, and there is no reason to accept one. . . . A per se rule that a defendant cannot win a Batson claim unless there is an exactly identical white juror would leave Batson inoperable; potential jurors are not products of a set of cookie cutters. Id. The Court then considered two specific African-American jurors who had been struck by the prosecution: Billy Jean Fields and Joe Warren. Id. at 242-52. The prosecutor’s proffered reason for striking Fields was that he had concerns with Fields’s statements indicating that he could not impose the death penalty because the defendant could possibly be rehabilitated. Id. at 243. After that strike was challenged by defense counsel, the prosecutor added that Fields was struck because his brother had a prior conviction. Id. at 246. The Court noted that the prosecutor mischaracterized Fields’s statements and that the prosecutor accepted several non-African-American venire members who expressed reservations about imposing the death penalty on a person who could be rehabilitated. Id. at 244-45. The Court discredited the prosecutor’s secondary basis for the strike because it “reek[ed] of afterthought,” as Fields stated that he was not close to his brother, and the prosecutor did not ask whether his brother’s criminal history would influence him if he were to serve as a juror. Id. at 246. 7 Case: 08-10057 Document: 00511007241 Page: 8 Date Filed: 01/19/2010 No. 08-10057 The prosecutor in Miller-El II provided three reasons for striking Joe Warren: (1) Warren provided inconsistent responses and implied that the death penalty may be a more lenient punishment than imprisonment for life; (2) Warren was struck when the State still had ten peremptory challenges left and could afford to be more liberal in striking potential jurors; and (3) Warren had a brother-in-law who had been convicted of a crime involving food stamps. Id. at 248-52. The Court noted that three unstruck venire members expressed similar opinions regarding the death penalty being more lenient than life imprisonment and that one of those unstruck members was accepted before Warren was struck, thereby obviating the prosecutor’s second proffered reason. Id. at 248-49. As for the third justification, the Court held that the prosecutor’s failure to ask any questions about Warren’s brother-in-law undermined the validity of that reason. Id. at 250 n.8. The Court further noted that other unstruck panel members also had relatives who had criminal histories. Id. In light of these comparisons, the Court found the prosecutor’s race-neutral reasons to be implausible, thereby supporting the defendant’s Batson challenge. Id. at 247, 251-52. However, the Court’s ultimate conclusion that a Batson violation had occurred was also supported by the Court’s determinations that (1) the prosecutor engaged in purposeful discrimination by shuffling the jury panel3 and posing contrasting questions to the jurors regarding minimum sentences and (2) 3 Texas has a unique procedure allowing attorneys to “view the array” and then request that the venire be “shuffled.” Enacted at a time when questions could be raised as to the randomness of the venire panel’s assembly, its continued use has been questioned in light of Batson and modern selection processes. See Michael Gallagher, Abolishing the Texas Jury Shuffle, 35 ST . MARY ’S L. J. 303 (2004); Elaine Carlson, Batson, J.E.B., and Beyond: The Paradoxical Quest for Reasoned Peremptory Strikes in the Jury Selection Process, 46 BAYLOR L. REV . 947, 981-82 (1994). There is no indication that such a shuffle played a part in this case. 8 Case: 08-10057 Document: 00511007241 Page: 9 Date Filed: 01/19/2010 No. 08-10057 the Dallas County District Attorney’s office manual4 advocating the exclusion of minorities from jury service had been made available to at least one of the prosecutors in Miller-El’s trial. Id. at 253-66. In Snyder, a Louisiana defendant argued on appeal that the trial judge erred in rejecting his objection to the prosecutor’s discriminatory use of peremptory strikes against African-American jurors. 128 S. Ct. at 1207. Although the defendant’s Batson claim centered on two African-American venire members, the Supreme Court upheld the claim as to one, Jeffrey Brooks, and therefore found it unnecessary to consider the claim as to the other AfricanAmerican panelist. Id. at 1208. The prosecutor in Snyder provided two reasons for striking Brooks: (1) he looked very nervous throughout the questioning; and (2) he was a student teacher who expressed concern about missing class and the prosecutor was worried that Brooks might vote for the defendant’s guilt on a lesser verdict in order to avoid a penalty phase. Id. The Court noted that, although deference is due to a trial judge’s finding regarding a panelist’s demeanor, the trial judge did not make any explicit determination as to Brooks’s demeanor and simply overruled the Batson objection without explanation. Id. at 1209. It therefore held that “we cannot presume that the trial judge credited the prosecutor’s assertion that Mr. Brooks was nervous.” Id. The Court held that the prosecutor’s second proffered reason for striking Brooks was implausible because (1) Brooks was one of more than fifty venire members (many of whom were accepted as jurors by the prosecution) who expressed concern that jury service could interfere with their other 4 No evidence was presented in Hayes’s case that the now-notorious Sparling Manual continued to be in use at the time of his 2002 trial, by which time a new District Attorney was in place in Dallas County. See Fields v. Thaler, 588 F.3d 270, 281 (5th Cir. 2009) (noting with regard to another trial in 2002 that “long after the trials of Miller-el and Reed in 1986 and 1983, respectively. . . . There is no evidence that the now infamous Sparling Manual, outlining the reasoning for excluding minorities from jury service, was still in use by Dallas County prosecutors when [defendant’s] case was tried.”) 9 Case: 08-10057 Document: 00511007241 Page: 10 Date Filed: 01/19/2010 No. 08-10057 obligations, (2) the prosecutor’s outlined scenario was highly speculative, and (3) Brooks’s concern regarding his teaching requirements was resolved by the trial judge during voir dire. Id. at 1209-12. The Court held that “[t]he prosecution’s proffer of this pretextual explanation naturally gives rise to an inference of discriminatory intent.” Id. at 1212. The Court held that the prosecution would only be able to salvage the strike against Brooks by showing that the pretextual factor was not determinative, but that, in light of the circumstances at issue in that case, “the record does not show that the prosecution would have preemptively challenged Mr. Brooks based on his nervousness alone.” Id. Accordingly, the Snyder Court upheld the defendant’s Batson challenge and vacated the Louisiana Supreme Court’s judgment. Id. In Reed, we recently granted federal habeas relief in a case that was very similar to Miller-El II. Reed argued that the State’s race-neutral reasons for excluding African-American jurors were pretextual because the State had accepted many white jurors who had the same characteristics as the excluded African-American jurors. Reed, 555 F.3d at 368. We first concluded that, based upon Texas case law, Reed’s comparative analysis argument was not procedurally barred in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and, hence, was subject to review by this court. Id. at 369-71. We then decided that, even though a comparative analysis argument had not been considered by the state courts, it could be considered in a federal habeas proceeding. Id. at 371-75. This court supported its conclusion by reviewing the procedural history of Miller-El