Opinion ID: 800764
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Betty Simmons

Text: The State's explanations for striking Betty Simmons are also unconvincing. The ASA stated that Simmons's husband was unemployed and she had indicated that her son had gone to court because he had been a victim of an armed robbery and it was not clear to the ASA what the disposition of that armed robbery case had been, nor whether she was satisfied with the treatment her son had received. (Simmons said that her son was held up about 2 years before, authorities found the person, and her son had to go to court. She also said that there was nothing about that which would interfere with her ability to be a fair juror.) The ASA further stated, Again, I did not feel I had a great amount of knowledge regarding Betty Simmons. Her ties to the community seemed to be tenuous, and in comparison to the other jurors I was considering at that time, I did exercise a peremptory challenge. The claim that Simmons's ties to the community seemed to be tenuous is incredible. At the time of the trial, Simmons was 45 years old. She was married with 2 children (ages 14 and 23). She owned her own home. She was employed as a staff clerk for Illinois Bell Telephone Company where she had worked for 25 years. She had attended high school in Chicago. Any claim that Simmons's ties to the community seemed tenuous could not be further from reality. The trial court neglected to make a finding as to Simmons at the Batson hearing, but on remand, it, too, rejected this proffered explanation. This utterly incredible explanation is indicative of pretext. Respondent has not offered anything to rebut the inference of pretext. The trial court also credited the ASA's other reasons. A pretextual reason bears on the plausibility of other reasons given. See, e.g., Snyder, 552 U.S. at 478, 128 S.Ct. 1203; Miller-El II, 545 U.S. at 251-52, 125 S.Ct. 2317. The ASA claimed he made a comparative choice among jurors. When Simmons was struck, 8 other venirepersons also were excused and the second panel of jurors was sworn: Richard Gray, Helen Karwowski, Michael Dolan, and Lois Gregg. [2] The State's acceptance of Gregg is particularly troubling. The ASA had stated that he rarely accepted jurors who were teachers or spouses of teachers. Gregg's husband was a teacher (a professor), yet this didn't motivate the ASA to strike her. This is evidence tending to prove that his juror comparison rationale is a pretext for discrimination. See Miller-El II, 545 U.S. at 241, 125 S.Ct. 2317. The ASA also justified the strike of Simmons based on her husband's unemployment; the Illinois Supreme Court found a prospective juror's spouse's unemployment a valid concern that may be considered in exercising a peremptory challenge. See Harris II, 207 Ill.Dec. 400, 647 N.E.2d at 902-03. The state court also accepted the explanation that the prosecutor struck Simmons because of uncertainty about her son's armed robbery case and whether she was satisfied with the treatment her son had received. See id. It was unreasonable for the state court to accept these other explanations in light of the pretextual explanation that Simmons' ties to the community seemed tenuous and in light of all the other circumstances that tend to prove racial discrimination in the State's use of peremptory strikes to exclude nearly all the African Americans.