Opinion ID: 2040431
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Analysis of State Contention

Text: The appellate court's remand order was apparently for the purpose of securing additional evidence regarding accepted and rejected venire members' races and the bases for peremptory challenges so that the State's explanations for exercising its peremptory challenges might be adequately evaluated. However, the only evidence cited by defense counsel in his prima facie submission pertained to the race and number of the excluded black venire members; he pointed to no other circumstances arguably showing purposeful State discrimination. Unless defendant is now to be given an opportunity to supplement his prima facie submissionas, for example, might be done if the trial judge had improperly limited the submissionadditional evidence of venire members' races or other matters might now be relevant only if it were first found that defendant had established a prima facie case that required the State to offer neutral explanations for its challenges (see People v. Harris (1989), 129 Ill.2d 123, 174, 135 Ill.Dec. 861, 544 N.E.2d 357). In that event, additional evidence of venire members' races or other matters might assist in evaluating the State's explanations. (See Hope, 137 Ill.2d at 456, 148 Ill.Dec. 252, 560 N.E.2d 849 ( Batson procedure should be methodical and step-by-step).) Hence, the propriety of remanding to secure such evidence depends on whether defendant established a prima facie Batson case so as to require neutral State explanations. A trial court's determination that a defendant has failed to establish a prima facie case of purposeful discrimination is a finding of fact and will not be overturned on review unless it is found to be against the manifest weight of the evidence. ( People v. Brisbon (1989), 129 Ill.2d 200, 231, 135 Ill.Dec. 801, 544 N.E.2d 297.) A preliminary question here is whether the trial court found that defendant had failed to establish a prima facie case under Batson or whether, on the contrary, the court first found that defendant had established a prima facie case, then proceeded to hear neutral explanations by the State, and then ultimately found that no purposeful discrimination had been proved. In Hope, we cautioned trial courts against collapsing what ought to be a methodical Batson hearing procedure into an undifferentiated review of defense and State contentions. ( Hope, 137 Ill.2d at 456, 148 Ill.Dec. 252, 560 N.E.2d 849.) If the State were allowed to interrupt the prima facie hearing stage by obtaining judicial consideration of its explanations even though they would be insufficient to overcome an already established prima facie case, those explanations would constitute a thumb on the scales that weigh the prima facie submission, which would undermine the very concept of a prima facie case as outlined in Batson. ( Hope, 137 Ill.2d at 456, 459, 148 Ill.Dec. 252, 560 N.E.2d 849.) However, the present cause arose prior to our decision in Hope. Under some authorities, we could regard the trial court's invitation for State explanations as creating a presumption that defendant had first established a prima facie case; if so, we should then have to determine whether the State's proffered neutral explanations had sufficiently rebutted that case. (See Hope, 137 Ill.2d at 460, 148 Ill.Dec. 252, 560 N.E.2d 849 (collecting cases). But cf. People v. Mahaffey (1989), 128 Ill.2d 388, 414, 132 Ill.Dec. 366, 539 N.E.2d 1172 ( prima facie Batson case was not established by fact that court, relying on pre- Batson case law, invited State explanations after defendant had cited State exclusion of all seven black venire members who remained after challenges for cause but whose comparative heterogeneity court analyzed).) Hope did not resort to the presumption of a prima facie case, because the trial court had expressly, though tardily, articulated a finding of no prima facie case, and this court was able to evaluate that finding on its merits. Hope, 137 Ill.2d at 460, 148 Ill.Dec. 252, 560 N.E.2d 849. We need not apply any presumption of a prima facie case in the present cause. Though the trial court articulated no such finding as in Hope, the present cause's Batson posture resembles that of People v. Brisbon (1989), 129 Ill.2d 200, 135 Ill.Dec. 801, 544 N.E.2d 297, in which we observed that the trial court had conducted what might be called a consolidated proceeding by apparently considering the entire record and the State's explanations as well as the defendant's submission when deciding that no prima facie case had been established. ( Brisbon, 129 Ill.2d at 231, 135 Ill.Dec. 801, 544 N.E.2d 297.) Rather than approve of the consolidated procedure, we decided Brisbon on the basis of our own evaluation of objective evidence relevant to whether a prima facie case had been established, not on evaluation of the State's explanations. (Emphasis in original.) Hope, 137 Ill.2d at 458, 148 Ill.Dec. 252, 560 N.E.2d 849. In contrast to the Hope and Brisbon trial judges, the trial judge at the Batson hearing in the present cause never expressly found whether defendant had established a prima facie case. He merely denied defendant's motion to strike the jury. However, because of the hearing's resemblance to that in Brisbon, and despite the fact that the hearing was not the methodical one later prescribed in Hope, we feel it appropriate to make an objective review of the record, ignoring the State's proffered explanations, in order to determine whether the trial judge as fact finder could reasonably have found, by applying the law, that defendant's submission established a prima facie Batson case. If not, there will be no need to assess the sufficiency of the State's explanations, since the burden of providing them rests on the State only after a defendant has made a prima facie case. See Batson, 476 U.S. at 97, 106 S.Ct. at 1723, 90 L.Ed.2d at 88; Hope, 137 Ill.2d at 453-54, 148 Ill.Dec. 252, 560 N.E.2d 849; Harris, 129 Ill.2d at 174, 135 Ill.Dec. 861, 544 N.E.2d 357. A prima facie case of purposeful racial discrimination in jury selection can be established by relying on the fact that peremptory challenges facilitate discrimination and by showing that (1) the defendant belongs to a cognizable racial group, (2) the State peremptorily challenged venire members who belonged to that group, and (3) these facts and any other relevant circumstances raise an inference of purposeful racial discrimination. ( Hope, 137 Ill.2d at 452, 148 Ill.Dec. 252, 560 N.E.2d 849, citing Batson, 476 U.S. at 93-96, 106 S.Ct. at 1721-23, 90 L.Ed.2d at 85-88.) However, as a general rule, the mere number of black venire members peremptorily challenged, without more, will not establish a prima facie case of discrimination. People v. Mahaffey (1989), 128 Ill.2d 388, 413-14, 132 Ill.Dec. 366, 539 N.E.2d 1172. In support of his motion to strike the jury, defense counsel in the present cause cited the number and names of black venire members who had been peremptorily challenged by the State. This identification of challenged black venire members was clearly sufficient to establish all elements of a Batson prima facie case except perhaps the critical, last element: whether these facts and any other relevant circumstances raise an inference of purposeful discrimination. Among many possible relevant circumstances may be a pattern of strikes against black venire members; the disproportionate use of strikes against such members; the level of black representation in the venire as compared to the jury; prosecutorial questions and statements during voir dire and while exercising challenges; and the races of defendant and victim or of defendant and witnesses. Hope, 137 Ill.2d at 453, 148 Ill.Dec. 252, 560 N.E.2d 849. Here, to supplement his citation of black venire members challenged by the State, defense counsel explained the reasons for his own challenges of black venire members, though he correctly acknowledged that he was under no obligation to offer such explanations. In fact, explaining his own challenges of black venire members was irrelevant to establishing a prima facie case of purposeful racial discrimination by the State. Except for this irrelevant explanation, defense counsel failed to supplement his prima facie submission. Prior to denying defendant's motion, the trial judge noted that the State had tendered three black venire members to the defense, which had then peremptorily challenged them, and that another three venire members had become jurors after being accepted by both the State and the defense. The judge then asked the prosecutor, Do you want to say anything about any of your challenges? and the prosecutor responded by explaining three of them on seemingly race-neutral grounds. As already explained, however, for present purposes we shall disregard these State explanations as being irrelevant to defendant's prima facie burden. Thus, to assess whether that burden was sustained, we are left with defense counsel's (relevant) list of black venire members challenged by the State and his (irrelevant) explanations of his own challenges to black venire members. Defense counsel's submission was simply insufficient for the trial judge reasonably to find that a prima facie Batson case had been established. The mere fact that some black venire members are challenged and others accepted by the State, without more, cannot be said to constitute even a pattern of such challenges. Much less can any actual disproportion in challenges or in representation be shown without evidence that the State challenged black venire members disproportionately as compared to white members, or that the level of black representation in the venire exceeded that in the jury, and defense counsel here offered no such evidence. No prosecutorial statements or questions during voir dire were cited by defense counsel as implying purposeful racial discrimination, and on a careful review of the record we can find none that could reasonably be said to have raised such an inference. Defendant and the victim were both black, according to the State's undisputed argument at the Batson hearing, and there is no evidence that the witnesses differed racially from defendant; thus, two more possible bases for inferring purposeful racial discrimination by the State in jury selection are weakened or eliminated. Finally, the trial judge relied partly on his own observation as to the number of black jurors, the number of black venire members challenged by the defense and by the prosecution, and the characteristics of those members challenged by the State. On reviewing the record, we do not feel that any circumstances revealed in it or cited at the Batson hearing would be seen by a reasonable trial judge as raising a prima facie inference of State discrimination. Because defendant, as a matter of law, failed to establish a prima facie case of purposeful State racial discrimination upon being given full opportunity to do so at a time when Batson had already been decided, there was no reversible Batson error here, and there is no occasion to remand this cause for a proper Batson hearing, as the appellate court ordered. It would indeed have been improper for the trial court, at the prima facie stage of the Batson hearing, to weigh the explanations the State offered then for three of its challenges. (See Hope, 137 Ill.2d at 456-60, 148 Ill.Dec. 252, 560 N.E.2d 849.) Moreover, one or more of these explanations, or one or more of the additional explanations suggested in the State's brief as justifications for its other challenges, might well have been insufficient if offered to rebut an already established prima facie case. (See People v. Harris (1989), 129 Ill.2d 123, 175, 135 Ill.Dec. 861, 544 N.E.2d 357 (exclusion of even one minority venireperson because of race is unconstitutional).) However, it is apparent from the record that, regardless of the State's explanations, defendant's prima facie submission was inadequate, and the trial court's denial of his motion to strike the jury was in accord with the manifest weight of the evidence.