Opinion ID: 31577
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Peremptory Challenge to Juror Brown

Text: The prosecutor used a peremptory challenge to prevent Glenn Brown (“Brown”),a black male, from sitting on the jury. Hearn challenged the use of the peremptory challenge based on Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 89 (1986), in which the Supreme Court prohibited prosecutors from using perempt ory challenges to exclude jurors from participation in the jury based on their race. The prosecutor explained that he used the peremptory challenge based on Brown’s religious beliefs and not his race. Specifically, the prosecutor feared that Brown’s willingness to forgive his own grandmother’s murderer signified that Brown would have a “real, real tough time” imposing the death penalty on Hearn. The trial court accepted the prosecutor’s reasons for peremptorily striking Brown to be race neutral. After the defendant has made a prima facie showing that the prosecutor exercised a peremptory challenge on the basis of race and the prosecutor has provided a race-neutral reason for striking the juror, the decisive question [is] whether [the prosecutor’s] race-neutral explanation [] should be believed. There will seldom be much evidence bearing on that issue, and the best evidence often will be the demeanor of the attorney who exercises the challenge. As with the state of mind of a juror, evaluation of the prosecutor’s state of mind based on demeanor and credibility lies peculiarly within a trial judge’s province. Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. 352, 358-59, 365 (1991). For this reason, the trial court’s finding of fact on this question is entitled to great deference by this Court. Id. at 364-65. “[I]n the absence of exceptional circumstances, we would defer to state-court factual findings, even when those findings relate to a constitutional issue.” Id. at 366. Hearn offers no evidence of exceptional circumstances, thus this Court must defer to the judgment of the trial court. 6