Opinion ID: 1516216
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Denial of Defense Peremptory Strike[6]

Text: Appellant first claims that appellate counsel was ineffective in forwarding his claim on direct appeal that the trial court improperly violated appellant's right to exercise a peremptory challenge during voir dire. Appellant argues that the trial court improperly seated Dorothy Spicer as a juror over his challenge despite his race-neutral explanation that he believed she looked untrustworthy. The trial court's ruling, appellant argues, violated his due process rights and his rights under the Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution and Article 1, Sections 9 and 13 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. With respect to appellate counsel's alleged deficient performance, appellant contends that appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to argue that: (1) there was no prima facie case of discrimination established; (2) trial counsel had accepted a white juror, Scott Yoder, whom the Commonwealth had rejected; (3) Purkett v. Elem, 514 U.S. 765, 115 S.Ct. 1769, 131 L.Ed.2d 834 (1995) (per curiam), supported his claim; and (4) the trial court's ruling is not subject to harmless error analysis under Vasquez v. Hillery, 474 U.S. 254, 106 S.Ct. 617, 88 L.Ed.2d 598 (1986). The Commonwealth responds that appellant's claim was previously litigated since appellant's challenge to seating Dorothy Spicer on the jury was decided by this Court on direct appeal. The PCRA court agreed with the Commonwealth and, accordingly, did not analyze the merits of appellant's appellate ineffectiveness claim. On direct appeal, this Court characterized appellant as arguing that juror Spicer should not have been seated because: (1) the trial court erred in sua sponte raising the issue of the discriminatory use of peremptory challenges by the defense; (2) at the time the issue was raised there had been no pattern of prejudice establishing prima facie discrimination and warranting explanation for the use of peremptories; and (3) placing the juror on the panel was not the appropriate remedy. Carson I, 741 A.2d at 693. While noting that the case law supported the Commonwealth's contrary position that trial courts are duty-bound to respond to and prevent racial discrimination, we ultimately stated that: In addressing appellant's claim, we decline to step into the morass of peremptory challenge jurisprudence created by the United States Supreme Court. For even if we were to accept Appellant's contention that the trial court erred in raising the issue sua sponte, we must nevertheless agree with the Commonwealth that Appellant suffered no prejudice. Id. at 696. In this regard, we observed that appellant had failed to show that juror Spicer was biased or incompetent to serve as a juror and that a defendant's right to an impartial jury of his peers does not entitle him to a jury of his choice. Id. (citing Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 95 S.Ct. 692, 42 L.Ed.2d 690 (1975)). The foregoing resolution of appellant's underlying claim on direct appeal requires rejection of his current claim, i.e., because we previously determined that appellant suffered no prejudice by the trial court's seating of juror Spicer, appellant is hard-pressed to argue now that a deficient performance by direct appeal counsel precluded the Court from reaching an opposite result. Although appellant inappropriately argues that Vasquez prohibits employing a harmless-error analysis in jury discrimination claims, this discrete portion of the U.S. Supreme Court's opinion garnered only three votes and controls nothing. Vasquez, 474 U.S. at 264, 106 S.Ct. 617. More importantly, Vasquez is inapposite, as it is a case where members of the defendant's own race were excluded from a grand jury. Id. at 256, 106 S.Ct. 617. Here, there are no allegations that the trial court's action amounted to racial discrimination and we know of no authority, and appellant does not cite any, providing that a defendant has an unfettered constitutional right to exercise a peremptory challenge to a juror. Appellant does not offer any other argument implicating the prejudice prong of his ineffectiveness claim, but rather baldly states that he was prejudiced by direct appeal counsel's failure to make particular arguments. Notably, though, not one of the arguments that appellant says his direct appeal counsel should have made would have disputed this Court's prior finding that appellant suffered no prejudice when juror Spicer was placed on his jury. [7] Consequently, appellant's first ineffectiveness claim fails.