Opinion ID: 1140588
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: was benson deprived of his right to be tried by a jury selected in a racially neutral manner?

Text: Out of a twenty member jury panel, eight were of the black race. The State accepted the first four black members of the panel, exercised three of its six peremptory challenges against blacks and accepted a fifth black juror. The final result was a jury composed of seven whites and five blacks. Benson contends the trial court erred in allowing the prosecution to peremptorily strike black jurors over his objections based on Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986). As stated in Taylor v. State, 524 So.2d 565 (Miss. 1988): Under Batson, a criminal defendant makes out a prima facie case for attacking the composition of a jury panel if he can show (1) that he is a member of a cognizable racial group; (2) that the prosecutor has exercised peremptory challenges toward the elimination of veniremen in that group; and (3) that the attendant circumstances justify an inference that the challenges were made for racially invidious purposes. The burden then shifts to the prosecution to give racially neutral explanations for each challenge. Taylor at 566. (citations omitted). The State gave the following reasons for each strike: 1. The prosecutor believed Mamie Flowers was either the mother or aunt of Helen Flowers, who had been prosecuted by the District Attorney's office about three years ago for uttering forgery in Marion County. She lived in the Expose Community, where Helen Flowers had lived. 2. Jessie McKenzie had an unsteady work record, which in the prosecutor's experience indicated she probably would tend to excuse other people who would commit a robbery for pecuniary gain. 3. The assistant district attorney had personally prosecuted members of the family of Carolyn Stepney. These explanations are similar to the explanations found to be race-neutral in Lockett v. State, 517 So.2d 1346 (Miss. 1987). It should be reiterated that the prosecutor's explanation need not rise to the level of justifying exercise of a challenge for cause, but may not include the prosecutor's assumption  or intuitive judgment  that they [black jurors] would be partial to the defendant because of their share[d] race. Lockett at 1352. (quoting Batson, 476 U.S. at 97, 106 S.Ct. at 1723, 90 L.Ed.2d at 88). It is the duty of the trial court to determine whether purposeful discrimination has been shown. Lockett at 1349. In the present case, the explanations given by the State satisfied the trial court. Because a trial judge's factual findings relative to a prosecutor's use of peremptory challenges on minority persons are to be accorded great deference [such findings] will not be reversed unless they appear clearly erroneous or against the overwhelming weight of the evidence. Lockett at 1350. This assignment of error, therefore, is without merit.