Opinion ID: 2517296
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Prospective juror Benitez

Text: The State advanced the following purported race-neutral justification for its challenge of prospective juror Benitez: Benitez . . . was adamant . . . that if the State was to prosecute her in a case everything would have to be perfect . . . she made mention of the fact that everything would have to be done perfectly or something to that extent when asked by the defense about the level of work that the State would have to do in investigating the case, and I thought that that was unfair. . . . Diomampo argues that Benitez never stated that she expected a criminal investigation to be perfect, merely that she expected the police to investigate everything in the case, even to prove her innocence. In addition, he asserts that two other nonminority jurors provided the same response as Benitez and were not dismissed. [23] Diomampo further claims that it was the defense, not the prosecution, that questioned the jurors about law enforcement and the duty to investigate; he contends that if the prosecutor was actually concerned about the race-neutral reasons for the dismissals, he could have asked follow-up questions instead of passing her for cause. We conclude that Diomampo's Batson challenge as to Benitez lacks merit. As the State argues, Benitez made it clear that she believed that the police had the burden of investigating every issue to ensure that the defendant was innocent. Specifically, she stated that she would expect that the police would investigate everything, [sic] little thing as possible to prove that I'm innocent. Also, her response was distinguishable from responses by the other prospective jurors to the same line of questioning. Specifically, as previously noted, one juror stated that he did not expect the police to prove his innocence, and the other indicated that she expected the police to do the best possible job. As a result, we conclude that the State provided a plausible nonpretextual, race-neutral justification for dismissing Benitez. This is consistent with the basic purpose of peremptory challenges: `to allow parties to remove potential jurors whom they suspect, but cannot prove, may exhibit a particular bias.' [24]