Opinion ID: 1960214
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Application of Batson Standards

Text: Defendant argues the trial judge used a flawed Batson procedure, stating that race-neutral reasons existed in the record of voir dire and then allowing the prosecutor an opportunity to respond with his own explanations, after which the judge rubber stamped his initial decision and overruled the Batson objection. Furthermore, defendant claims that the trial judge assumed the role of the prosecutor by occasionally proffering his own reasons to justify the prosecutor's strikes, supplementing the record with his own assessment of possible race-neutral reasons, rather than requiring the prosecutor to articulate the purported bases for the strikes. The Court in Batson declined to formulate particular procedures required to prove discriminatory purpose and left the determination of the necessary quantum of proof for the trial courts. In State v. Green, 94-0887 (La.5/22/95), 655 So.2d 272, 287-88, this court held that the sole focus of the Batson inquiry is upon the intent of the prosecutor at the time of exercising peremptory strikes and outlined several factors to be considered in determining whether the defense established discriminatory purpose: The defendant may offer any facts relevant to the question of the prosecutor's discriminatory intent to satisfy this burden. Such facts include, but are not limited to, a pattern of strikes by a prosecutor against members of a suspect class, statements or actions of the prosecutor which support an inference that the exercise of peremptory strikes was motivated by impermissible considerations, the composition of the venire and of the jury finally empaneled, and any other disparate impact upon the suspect class which is alleged to be the victim of purposeful discrimination. See State v. Collier, 553 So.2d 815 (La.1989). In the present case, defendant points out, in support of his establishing a prima facie case in the first step of the Batson procedure, that the prosecutor used all but one of the ten peremptory challenges [4] he exercised, plus both of his alternate peremptory challenges, to remove black members of the venire, although African-Americans comprised only about thirty-five percent of the qualified venire, while using only ten percent of his strikes to remove non-blacks, although sixty-five percent of the qualified venire was nonblack. Defendant emphasizes that the prosecutor struck all but two of the African-American venirepersons remaining in the jury pool after cause challenges had been made, one of whom was removed by a defense peremptory challenge and one of whom served on the jury. [5] The trial judge may not have strictly adhered to the first step outlined in Batson, but his overall application of the Batson standards was fair in light of the decision in Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. 352, 359, 111 S.Ct. 1859, 114 L.Ed.2d 395 (1991), which held that the issue of whether the defendant has established a prima facie case becomes moot if the court requires, and the prosecutor responds, with his race-neutral reasons for excusing the prospective jurors. A trial judge may therefore effectively collapse the first two stages of the Batson procedure, whether or not the defendant established a prima facie case of purposeful discrimination, and may then perform the critical third step of weighing the defendant's proof and the prosecutor's race-neutral reasons to determine discriminatory intent. The judge in this case did not commit reversible error in his handling of the first two steps of the Batson procedure.