Opinion ID: 767563
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Comparison of the Batson and Wheeler Standards

Text: 18 The state trial court determined that petitioners had not established a prima facie case requiring the prosecutor to provide a race-neutral explanation of his challenge to Ms. Rutherford. In order to decide the degree of deference we owe the state trial court's determination, we must decide whether it applied the correct legal standard in making that determination. 19 In Batson, the United States Supreme Court set out a three-step process in the trial court to determine whether a peremptory challenge is race-based in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. First, the defendant must make a prima facie showing that the prosecutor has exercised a peremptory challenge on the basis of race. See Batson, 476 U.S. at 96-97. That is, the defendant must demonstrate that the facts and circumstances of the case raise an inference that the prosecution has excluded venire members from the petit jury on account of their race. Id. at 96. If a defendant makes this showing, the burden then shifts to the prosecution to provide a race-neutral explanation for its challenge. See id. at 97. The trial court then determines whether the defendant has established purposeful racial discrimination by the prosecution. See id. at 98. 20 In Wheeler, decided eight years before Batson, the California Supreme Court presaged Batson by interpreting Article I, section 16 of the California Constitution to prohibit racebased peremptory challenges. 22 Cal. 3d at 272. Just as the Batson Court would later do, the Wheeler Court outlined a process that the state trial courts should use to identify racebased peremptory challenges, the first step of which required the defendant to make a prima facie showing of discrimination. But unlike the Batson Court, which required only that the defendant raise an inference of discrimination, the Wheeler Court demanded that the defendant showa strong likelihood that the prosecutor had excluded venire members from the petit jury on account of their race. Id. at 280. Batson and Wheeler thus may be thought to prescribe different tests for establishing a prima facie case. 21 Upon closer examination, however, it appears that the Wheeler Court itself understood a strong likelihood to mean a reasonable inference. While the Wheeler Court, on page 280 of its opinion, required a defendant to show a strong likelihood that the prosecutor excluded venire members from the jury on the basis of race, the Wheeler Court phrased its central holding somewhat differently on the very next page: Upon presentation of this and similar evidence -in the absence, of course, of the jury -the court must determine whether a reasonable inference arises that peremptory challenges are being used on the ground of group bias alone. Id. at 281 (emphasis added). It is this language regarding a reasonable inference that the Supreme Court of the United States borrowed when it formulated the Batson test. 22 In 1982, the California Court of Appeal for the First District concluded that the two phrases used by the Wheeler Court, strong likelihood and reasonable inference, amounted to the same thing. We believe that a fair reading of Wheeler requires only that the court find a reasonable inference of group bias once an appropriate foundation is laid in the first of the two stages. People v. Fuller, 136 Cal. App. 3d 403, 423 (1982). The Fuller court was unwilling to believe that the California Supreme Court intended to create different options for trial judges within one page of each other in so carefully crafted an opinion as the Wheeler opinion. Id. at 423 n.25. We agree that when a court announces its central holding twice, using two different phrases, it logically follows that the two phrases are intended to mean the same thing. By subsequently adopting a variation of the raise an inference phraseology, the Batson Court therefore adopted a standard compatible with the Wheeler standard, as interpreted by Fuller. California state judges following Wheeler and Fuller thus conducted Wheeler/Batson inquiries by looking to the language of both tests; they saw that both tests required the defendant to raise a reasonable inference that jurors had been stricken on the basis of an impermissible criteria; and in so doing they successfully complied with the dictates of the California and Federal Constitutions. 23 This appears to have been the law in California until 1994, when another panel of the California Court of Appeal disavowed Fuller, thereby creating an inconsistency between Wheeler and Batson. The Court of Appeal in People v. Bernard, 27 Cal. App. 4th 458 (1994), wrote: 24 Although the Fuller court expressed doubt as to whether the Supreme Court in Wheeler in fact intended a threshold prima facie standard consisting of a strong likelihood in light of the ultimate reasonable inference test to be utilized by the trial court, we are convinced the Supreme Court intended the meaning of its carefully crafted language . . . and reject any dictum to the contrary. 25 . . . To incorporate the reasonable inference standard into the prima facie showing might easily transform removal of each and every juror belonging to a cognizable group into a Wheeler hearing. Fur ther, a reduction of the prima facie standard to a reasonable inference test would reduce the trial court's discretion and judgment at a time when it is uniquely situated to observe the nature and extent of voir dire as well as the attitude and awareness of the challenged prospective juror. 26 Id. at 465. The Bernard court thus explicitly rejected the idea that reasonable inference and strong likelihood meant the same thing, turning its back on Fuller and Batson. It appears to us that from that point forward, the California state courts have applied a lowerstandard of scrutiny to peremptory strikes than the federal Constitution permits. 27 The California Supreme Court now routinely insists, despite Batson, that a defendant must show a strong likelihood of racial bias. Its consistent practice is to cite Batson and Wheeler together as controlling law but to quote the strong likelihood language from Wheeler rather than the raise an inference language from Batson . See, e.g., People v. Welch, 20 Cal. 4th 701, 745 (1999) (Under Wheeler and Batson, if a party believes his opponent is using his peremptory challenges to strike jurors on the ground of group bias alone, . . . . he must show a strong likelihood that such persons are being challenged because of their group association.) (emphasis added, internal quotation marks omitted); People v. Davenport, 11 Cal. 4th 1171, 1199-1200 (1995) (Under Wheeler and Batson, [i]f a party believes his opponent is using his peremptory challenges to strike jurors on the ground of group bias alone, . . . . he must show a strong likelihood that such persons are being challenged because of their group association.) (emphasis added, internal quotation marks omitted); People v. Turner , 8 Cal. 4th 137, 164 (1994) (same). Batson is, of course, the law of the land. California law may give greater protection to criminal defendants than is required by the federal Constitution, but it cannot give less. Yet this is precisely what the California courts now do when they follow the Wheeler strong likelihood test in determining whether a prima facie case has been established. 28 In our view, the Wheeler strong likelihood test for a successful prima facie showing of bias is impermissibly stringent in comparison to the more generous Batson inference test. Indeed, when the California Court of Appeal resolved the direct appeal in the case now before us, it followed the literal language of Wheeler and characterized its test for a prima facie case as not easy. Buckley, 53 Cal. App. 4th at 663 n.17. It wrote, The `strong likelihood' phrase conveys the clear message that the test is not an easy one (a message we take to heart in the present case) . . . . Id. The United States Supreme Court has explained that the Batson framework was intended significantly to reduce the quantum of proof previously required of a defendant who wished to raise a claim of racial bias in the jury selection procedure. See Georgia v. McCollum, 505 U.S. 42, 47 (1992); see also Tolbert, 182 F.3d at 680. Accordingly, although the Batson prima facie case requirement cannot be taken for granted, it is not onerous. United States v. Escobar-de Jesus, 187 F.3d 148, 164 (1st Cir. 1999) (quoting United States v. Bergodere, 40 F.3d 512, 516 (1st Cir. 1994)). We therefore conclude that California courts in following the strong likelihood language of Wheeler are not applying the correct legal standard for a prima facie case under Batson. 29 AEDPA directs us to defer to state court determinations unless they involve an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law as determined by the United States Supreme Court. See 28 U.S.C. S 2254(d). Where the California courts follow the strong likelihood language of Wheeler without any indication that they are actually applying a reasonable inference test consonant with Batson, they apply an incorrect legal standard. In such a case, we need not -indeed, should not -give deference to their determination that a defendant has failed to establish a prima facie case of bias. Because the California courts followed the strong likelihood test of Wheeler rather than the inference test of Batson in adjudicating petitioners' claims of racial bias in the prosecution's use of its peremptory challenges, we review the petitioners' Batson claims de novo.