Opinion ID: 1910344
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Recent United States Supreme Court Batson Developments

Text: In 2003three years after defendant's conviction in the instant casethe United States Supreme Court imbued the Batson test with new vitality in the first of two companion decisions: Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 123 S.Ct. 1029, 154 L.Ed.2d 931 (2003) ( Miller-El I ), and Miller-El v. Dretke, 545 U.S. 231, 125 S.Ct. 2317, 162 L.Ed.2d 196 (2005) ( Miller-El II ). In that case, during voir dire the prosecution exercised peremptory challenges to exclude ten of eleven black venire members from serving on the petit jury that would decide the merits of Miller-El's capital murder charge in Texas state court. Miller-El I, 537 U.S. at 328, 331, 123 S.Ct. 1029. Miller-El moved to strike the jury, arguing that the peremptory challenges violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Id. at 328, 123 S.Ct. 1029. Following a Swain [10] hearing, the state court denied Miller-El's motion. [11] Id. Miller-El subsequently was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. Id. While Miller-El's appeal was pending in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the United States Supreme Court decided Batson, and the case was remanded for further findings in light of that decision. Id. at 328-29, 123 S.Ct. 1029. Miller-El again was denied relief. Id. at 329, 123 S.Ct. 1029. After exhausting all avenues of postconviction relief through the state of Texas, he turned to the federal courts; eventually the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit denied Miller-El's petition for habeas corpus. [12] Id. at 329-30, 123 S.Ct. 1029. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari and reversed the Fifth Circuit, holding that Miller-El was entitled to habeas relief. The Court began by conducting a comparative juror analysis, which it described as a side-by-side comparison[] of some black venire panelists who were struck and white panelists allowed to serve. Miller-El II, 545 U.S. at 241, 125 S.Ct. 2317. The Court explained that [i]f a prosecutor's proffered reason for striking a black panelist applies just as well to an otherwise-similar nonblack who is permitted to serve, that is evidence tending to prove purposeful discrimination to be considered at Batson's third step. Id. Noting that although peremptory challenges are often the subjects of instinct, when illegitimate grounds like race are in issue, a prosecutor simply has got to state his reasons as best he can and stand or fall on the plausibility of the reasons he gives. A Batson challenge does not call for a mere exercise in thinking up any rational basis. If the stated reason does not hold up, its pretextual significance does not fade because a trial judge, or an appeals court, can imagine a reason that might not have been shown up as false. Id. at 252, 125 S.Ct. 2317. In addition to the sheer statistics of challenged black venire members versus nonblacks allowed to serve and the telling results of a comparative analysis of the same, id. at 240-51, 125 S.Ct. 2317 the Supreme Court cited its concern with several other questionable practices the prosecution employed throughout the selection of Miller-El's petit jury. First, the Supreme Court noted the discriminatory use of a Texas procedure known as the jury shuffle, whereby either side may literally reshuffle the cards bearing panel members' names, thus rearranging the order in which members of a venire panel are seated and reached for questioning. Id. at 253, 125 S.Ct. 2317. The Court concluded that the prosecution's decision to seek a jury shuffle when a predominant number of African-Americans were seated in the front of the panel, along with its decision to delay a formal objection to the defense's shuffle until after the new racial composition was revealed, raise a suspicion that the State sought to exclude African-Americans from the jury. Id. at 254, 125 S.Ct. 2317 (quoting Miller-El I, 537 U.S. at 346, 123 S.Ct. 1029). In addition, the Court referenced the prosecution's disproportionate use of loaded questions at voir dire concerning black venire members' views on the death penalty and the mandatory minimum sentence for murder as designed to elicit objectionable responses from minority venire members, thereby generating viable race-neutral reasons for excluding black venire members from the petit jury. [13] Finally, the Supreme Court considered the long-standing policy of systematically excluding blacks from juries, highlighted by a practice manual for all new Dallas County district attorneys that instructed newly anointed prosecutors on the reasons for excluding minorities from jury service. In light of the overwhelming evidence of purposeful discrimination, the Court concluded that [t]he [peremptory] strikes correlate with no fact as well as they correlate with race, and they occurred during a selection infected by shuffling and disparate questioning that race explains better than any race-neutral reason advanced by the State. Id. at 266, 125 S.Ct. 2317. These alarming facts stand in stark contrast to the circumstances in the case now before this Court. Batson's third prong is not the only step that recently has received attention. In Johnson v. California, 545 U.S. 162, 125 S.Ct. 2410, 162 L.Ed.2d 129 (2005), decided the same day as Miller-El II, the Supreme Court clarified an objector's burden in Batson's first step. In that case, before Johnson's trial for second-degree murder and assault, the prosecution used three of its twelve peremptory challenges to strike the only three black venire members eligible for service on the petit jury. Id. at 164, 125 S.Ct. 2410. Overruling Johnson's two objections to the peremptory strikes, the trial justice concluded that Johnson had failed to demonstrate a  strong likelihood  of purposeful discrimination and, therefore, did not make out a prima facie case. Id. at 165, 125 S.Ct. 2410. Johnson subsequently was convicted on both charges and, after the Court of Criminal Appeals set aside his conviction, see People v. Johnson, 105 Cal.Rptr.2d 727 (Cal.Ct. App.2001), the California Supreme Court reinstated the judgment of conviction, holding that Batson permits a court to require the objector to present, not merely `some evidence' permitting the inference, but `strong evidence' that makes discriminatory intent more likely than not if the challenges are not explained. Johnson, 545 U.S. at 167, 125 S.Ct. 2410 (quoting People v. Johnson, 30 Cal.4th 1302, 1 Cal. Rptr.3d 1, 71 P.3d 270, 278 (2003)). The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari and reversed the California Supreme Court, holding that California's `more likely than not' standard is an inappropriate yardstick by which to measure the sufficiency of a prima facie case. Johnson, 545 U.S. at 168, 125 S.Ct. 2410. The Court stated that it did not intend the first [ Batson ] step to be so onerous[.] Id. at 170, 125 S.Ct. 2410. Instead, a defendant satisfies the requirements of Batson's first step by producing evidence sufficient to permit the trial judge to draw an inference that discrimination has occurred. Id. The Court clarified the interplay among the three Batson steps: The first two Batson steps govern the production of evidence that allows the trial court to determine the persuasiveness of the defendant's constitutional claim. `It is not until the third step that the persuasiveness of the justification becomes relevantthe step in which the trial court determines whether the opponent of the strike has carried his burden of proving purposeful discrimination.' Id. at 171, 125 S.Ct. 2410 (quoting Purkett, 514 U.S. at 768, 115 S.Ct. 1769). The Court concluded that the evidence Johnson presented was sufficient to establish a prima facie case under Batson. Id. at 173, 125 S.Ct. 2410. 3