Opinion ID: 2449917
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Veniremember Vergia Dunbar

Text: The prosecutor stated for the trial court that he used a peremptory strike on Veniremember Dunbar because he perceived her to have a preference for life imprisonment without parole over the death penalty. He also reminded the court that he had made a record during voir dire that he had seen her sleeping. The prosecutor also offered Dunbar's profession as a reason to strike she was a retired social worker. Again, past experience and hunches are legitimate grounds for a peremptory strike. Kempker, 824 S.W.2d at 911. On their faces, these reasons are racially-neutral. Defense counsel argued that these reasons were merely a subterfuge concealing racial bias. Hall's counsel claimed that he and his interns saw white veniremembers sleeping, he did not say who or how many, who were not struck. He did not allege that were sleeping and preferred the sentence of life imprisonment, however. Therefore, these unidentified veniremembers were not similarly situated. The court reviewed its notes and confirmed that a record had been made on the sleeping and that it, too, had noted that Dunbar appeared to prefer life imprisonment without parole over the death penalty. The trial court did not clearly err in finding the prosecutor's justifications to be plausible and in finding that Hall did not meet his burden in proving that those justifications masked any racial motivation for striking Dunbar from the venirepanel.