Opinion ID: 619103
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Majority Race Exception

Text: As a preliminary matter, Dalton and Miller argue that the Batson line of cases ought not even apply here. Their argument is that discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause is impossible where black defendants strike white prospective jurors who are replaced by other white prospective jurors, because no race is favored over any other race. Dalton further argues that Batson should not apply to this case because a white prospective juror's right to serve on a jury is outweighed by the superior fair trial right of a minority class defendant to use his allotted share of peremptory challenges not only to increase the chance of obtaining more members of his or her race on the jury but to also select freely among the majority members that necessarily will serve on his or her jury. Br. of Dalton Bennett at 18-19. In Batson, the Supreme Court held that the Equal Protection Clause forbids the prosecutor to challenge potential jurors solely on account of their race or on the assumption that black jurors as a group will be unable impartially to consider the State's case against a black defendant. 476 U.S. at 89, 106 S.Ct. 1712. The McCollum Court extended Batson 's prohibition on racially motivated peremptory challenges to defendants, explaining that  Batson was designed to serve multiple ends, only one of which was to protect individual defendants from discrimination in the selection of jurors. 505 U.S. at 48, 112 S.Ct. 2348 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). McCollum 's extension of Batson was designed to remedy the harm done to the dignity of persons and to the integrity of the courts. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). McCollum vindicated the dignity of persons because denying a person participation in jury service on account of his race unconstitutionally discriminates against the excluded juror. Id. McCollum also vindicated the integrity of the courts because [j]ust as public confidence in criminal justice is undermined by a conviction in a trial where racial discrimination has occurred in jury selection, so is public confidence undermined where a defendant, assisted by racially discriminatory peremptory strikes, obtains an acquittal. Id. at 50, 112 S.Ct. 2348. Dalton and Miller correctly point out that Batson and McCollum both involved the use of peremptory strikes to exclude black jurors, and that neither the Supreme Court [3] nor the Fifth Circuit has squarely held that Batson and its progeny prohibit a black defendant from striking a white prospective juror based on the juror's race. This court has, however, assumed without raising the issue that black defendants' attempts to remove white prospective jurors based on their race implicated Batson and McCollum. See United States v. Dillard, 354 Fed.Appx. 852, 856-57 (5th Cir. 2009) (affirming district court's use of the three-step Batson analysis to determine whether black defendant who had used eight of nine peremptory challenges on white jurors had violated Batson and McCollum ); United States v. Bailey, 92 Fed.Appx. 99, 99 (5th Cir.2004) (affirming district court's conclusion that black defendant's use of peremptory challenge on white juror was discriminatory); United States v. Duncan, 191 F.3d 569, 574 (5th Cir.1999) (same); United States v. Kelley, 140 F.3d 596, 606-07 (5th Cir.1998) (same). Moreover, the Second Circuit has held that the argument that Batson does not apply where an African American defendant seeks to eliminate white jurors is entirely without merit. United States v. Thompson, 528 F.3d 110, 118 (2d Cir.2008). Because the right to be free from discrimination is a right enjoyed by individual potential jurors, McCollum, 505 U.S. at 48, 112 S.Ct. 2348, we reject Dalton and Miller's first argument that discrimination was impossible here, where white jurors were struck in favor of other white jurors. And because [i]t is an affront to justice to argue that a fair trial includes the right to discriminate against a group of citizens based upon their race, id. at 57, 112 S.Ct. 2348, we reject Dalton's second argument that black defendants should be able to use peremptory challenges in a discriminatory fashion. We therefore hold that the Equal Protection Clause prohibits a black defendant from using a peremptory challenge to strike a white prospective juror because of that juror's race.