Opinion ID: 2976330
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The prosecutor’s use of peremptory challenges

Text: The prosecutor used peremptory challenges to excuse two potential African-American jurors. Defendants objected that the prosecutor’s use of those two peremptory challenges was racially motivated. The district judge questioned the prosecutor about his motives. He explained that he excused one of the jurors because she had previously been charged with a crime, and although she was not convicted, he thought she might harbor some distrust of the police. As to the other juror, juror 194, the prosecutor explained that she had previously been on a jury that returned a not-guilty verdict, and that she had requested exclusion from jury duty because she was undergoing a very stressful divorce. A white juror had been on the same jury that returned the not-guilty verdict, but the prosecutor did not strike the white juror. When the court asked the prosecutor why he did not strike the white juror, the prosecutor replied that he did not know. The Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the prosecution from using racially motivated peremptory strikes. Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986). A challenge to the district court’s determination of a Batson challenge is reviewed for clear error. United States v. Copeland, 321 F.3d 582, 599 (6th Cir. 2003). Once a challenge is made, the burden shifts to the proponent of the strike, in this case the prosecutor, to articulate a race-neutral explanation for the strike. Id. The explanation “need not be persuasive, nor plausible,” so long as it is neutral. Id. at 599-600. Once a race-neutral explanation is made, the defendant must prove “[p]urposeful discrimination [which] may be shown by demonstrating that the proffered explanation is merely a pretext for racial motivation.” United States v. Jackson, 347 F.3d 598, 604 (6th Cir. 2003). “[R]eview of the district court’s resolution of the ultimate issue—whether the defendant has established purposeful discrimination—is limited: ‘[b]ecause this determination turns largely on the evaluation of credibility, reviewing courts give the findings of the district court great deference.’” Valentine v. United States, 488 F.3d 325, 338 (6th Cir. 2007) (quoting United States v. Harris, 192 F.3d 580, 586 (6th Cir. 1999)), cert. denied, __ S. Ct. __, 2008 WL 117931 (U.S. Feb. 19, 2008) (No. 07-8640). The prosecutor’s race-neutral explanation is not required to be persuasive. Purkett v. Elem, 514 U.S. 765, 767-68 (1995). “Unless a discriminatory intent is inherent in the [strike proponent’s] explanation, the reason offered will be deemed race neutral.” Id. at 768. Here, the prosecutor offered race-neutral explanations, which shifted the burden to the defendants to prove that the explanations were merely a pretext for discrimination. Defendants did not satisfy that burden. They focus on the fact that the prosecutor did not provide a persuasive explanation for retaining the white juror who also previously returned a not-guilty verdict. That fact is not sufficient to prove that the prosecutor’s strike was pretextual because the prosecutor had two plausible, race-neutral justifications for striking juror 194. Moreover, the court’s determination that race was not the ultimate motivation in striking the juror depended largely on the court’s finding that the prosecutor was credible. Accordingly, I would conclude from the evidence in this record that it was not clearly erroneous for the district court to conclude that the race-neutral explanations were not merely pretext for discrimination. Nos. 06-5885/5915 United States v. Odeneal, et al. Page 5