Opinion ID: 800764
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Christine Riley

Text: And even more telling is the State's justification for its peremptory strike against Christine Riley. Harris challenges the strike of Riley in the context of his claim under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), which set forth principles governing ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims. To succeed on such a claim, Harris would have to show that his counsel's performance was deficientfell below an objective standard of reasonablenessand the deficient performance prejudiced the defensethere is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different. Id. at 687-88, 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052. The Illinois Supreme Court resolved the Strickland claim by concluding that Harris suffered no prejudice as a result of counsel's failure to establish Riley's and Shealy's race. Harris III, 276 Ill.Dec. 419, 794 N.E.2d at 326-31. Because the Batson claim involving Riley has merit, this conclusion is unreasonable. The ASA justified the strike of Riley as follows: She lived in the Hyde Park area. She had a nephew that she indicated had been stabbed just three months before the time she was being voir dired, and she told your Honor that she didn't know what had happened to her nephew. She then indicated that it was a fight and she didn't seem to know who was charged, or if her nephew was charged or the other party or parties had been charged. It seemed very possible that, after hearing her response, that her nephew may have been the considered target of investigation or a charged individual in that case, and it was not clear to me whether she was telling the Court and the attorneys all she knew about this matter, and I did not feel that her responses were such that she would be a juror that I would want sitting at this trial. He added that Riley indicated that she was separated from her husband, and again, her card was incomplete as to her husband's employment and other information regarding her husband. I did not know what the reason for that was[.] The ASA expressed concern that there may have been some friction or animosity there that may have made her have some emotional feelings or may have made her an [un]acceptable juror to consider this case. The explanation based on the premise that Riley's nephew may have been the target of an investigation or charged in a criminal case demonstrates pretext and discriminatory animus. In voir dire, when asked whether she had any close friends or relative/s who had ever been the victim of a crime, Riley testified that she had a nephew who was stabbed about 3 months before in front of his house on Chicago's south side. She said that he was all right but had spent about one week in the hospital. The prosecutor asked her, Do you know anything about that, why it happened, or anything of that nature? Riley answered, I don't know exactly why. It was a fight. I don't know exactly what happened. When explaining the strike of Riley, as noted, the ASA said that she didn't seem to know who was charged, or if her nephew was charged or the other party or parties had been charged and that [i]t seemed very possible that . . . her nephew may have been the considered target of investigation or a charged individual in that case. Yet nothing Riley said during voir dire reasonably suggested that her nephew had been charged or investigated as a result of having been stabbed. She wasn't even asked whether he or anyone else was charged. She was asked only about the stabbing and why it occurred. And, she was asked whether someone close to her had ever been a victim of a crime. That the ASA jumped to the conclusion that Riley's nephew may have been charged as an offender, but did not appear to even consider that possibility when non-African American venirepersons, Richard Gray, Maureen Ring, Lois Gregg, Michael Dolan, and Norma Peacock, said a family member had been a crime victim, is quite telling. From this racially disparate assumption about criminal responsibility, discriminatory intent is clear. The trial judge found that the explanation that Riley was struck because she lived in the community of Hyde Park and was separated from her husband were race-neutral reasons for excluding her. The Illinois Supreme Court upheld the crediting of the Hyde Park reason but did not address the separation. See Harris III, 276 Ill.Dec. 419, 794 N.E.2d at 327-28. Nor did it address the ASA's assumption that Riley's nephew may have been charged. That assumption bears heavily on the plausibility of these other reasons offered to justify Riley's exclusion. And the ASA's concern that because of her separation from her husband, Riley may have some friction or animosity that gave her emotional feelings or made her otherwise unacceptable is implausible. There is no evidence in the record that Riley was experiencing emotional feelings that made her unable to serve as a juror. Without such evidence, it was unreasonable to credit this explanation. The trial judge's decision to credit the prosecutor's reasons for striking Riley involved an unreasonable determination of the facts. Most troubling, the judge failed to consider what the prosecutor's race-based assumption that Riley's nephew may have been charged shows about his intent. The State's remarkable pattern of strikes against African Americans bears on the plausibility of the other reasons offered to justify the strike of Riley as well. The Illinois Supreme Court's decision to reject the Batson claim as to Riley also was based on an incomplete evaluation of the reasons given and an incomplete assessment of the totality of the circumstances. Thus, we must conclude that the state court made an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in accepting any of the reasons offered as justification for the strike of Riley. That said, the state court unreasonably determined that Harris failed to show prejudice as a result of Batson counsel's failure to establish Riley's race. If counsel had established Riley's race, consideration of the State's strike against Riley could have proved a Batson violation. To sum up, the state court's credibility findings are clearly contradicted by the record and it was unreasonable for the court to credit the prosecutor's race-neutral explanations for striking several African American prospective jurors. The pattern of strikes against African Americans gives rise to an inference of discrimination. The State proffered implausible and pretextual justifications for the strikes. And a comparative juror analysis shows that some of the State's proffered reasons for striking African Americans applied equally to similar non-African Americans whom the State accepted as jurors, which tends to prove purposeful discrimination. We are aware that Snyder cautions that a retrospective comparative juror analysis based on an appellate record has the potential to be misleading when the alleged similarities were not asserted at trial because consideration of the alleged similarities may have shown that the jurors were not really comparable. 552 U.S. at 483, 128 S.Ct. 1203. As our discussion above demonstrates, however, we have taken great care in drawing comparisons, still keeping in mind that prospective jurors need not be identical in all respects for a comparison to be probative. See Miller-El II, 545 U.S. at 247 n. 6, 125 S.Ct. 2317 (potential jurors are not products of a set of cookie cutters). And we note that respondent has not argued that Folan was an inappropriate comparator to Woodard, Stearn, and Pickett because they possessed traits that made her more desirable as a juror. See Appellee Br. 28 (asserting a side-by-side comparison of Woodard with Folan was inappropriate because the State had no opportunity to strike Folan), id. at 30 (arguing Folan was not a proper comparator to Stearn because the State had no opportunity to strike her), id. at 31 (making the same argument with regard to Pickett). Furthermore, the comparative juror analysis is only one aspect of the totality of the circumstances that compels our conclusion that Harris has proved purposeful race discrimination in the jury selection. We agree that the strikes against Lisa Lucas, Emma Alexander, and Edward Shealy are also quite troubling. Demeanor-based explanations for a strike are particularly susceptible to serving as pretexts for discrimination. The evidence that other African Americans were excluded because of their race bears heavily on the plausibility of the reasons offered for striking these prospective jurors. But Harris has carried his burden of proving a Batson violation and so further consideration of these strikes is unnecessary. Also unnecessary is consideration of Harris's Brady claim.