Opinion ID: 1869014
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Counsel's Failure to Object to Prosecutor's Use of Peremptory Challenges

Text: On direct appeal, Conner complained that the State exercised its peremptory challenges against five women, three of whom were black. We refused to address the issue because Conner raised no objections to those challenges at trial. Conner v. State, 632 So.2d 1239, 1264 (Miss. 1993). Conner now contends that counsel was ineffective in failing to object to the State's peremptory challenges. At least two of the jurors seated were black, as was one of the alternates, and five of the jurors, as well as both alternates, were female. The State asserts that since it only used five of its twelve peremptory challenges, had it sought to strike blacks from the jury, it had sufficient strikes remaining to do so. For counsel's performance to be deemed ineffective, Conner must demonstrate that his case was prejudiced by the failure to raise any challenges pursuant to Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986). To establish that he was prejudiced, Conner must show: [H]e is member of a cognizable racial group, and that the prosecutor has exercised peremptory challenges to remove from the venire members of the defendant's race. Second, the defendant is entitled to rely on the fact, as to which there can be no dispute, that peremptory challenges constitute a jury selection practice that permits `those to discriminate who are of a mind to discriminate.' Finally the defendant must show that these facts and any other relevant circumstances raise an inference that the prosecutor used that practice to exclude the veniremen from the petit jury on account of their race. Batson, 476 U.S. at 96, 106 S.Ct. at 1723 (citations omitted). Conner makes no attempt to demonstrate that the State exercised its peremptory challenges in a racially-discriminatory manner. Our reading of the record indicates that the peremptory challenges all were made for race-neutral reasons. We likewise reject Conner's reliance on Ex parte Yelder, 575 So.2d 137, 139 (Ala. 1991), where the Alabama Supreme Court held that the failure of trial counsel to make a timely Batson objection to a prima facie case of purposeful discrimination by the State in the jury selection process through its use of peremptory challenges is presumptively prejudicial to a defendant. As distinguished from the case sub judice, where the State exercised two or three of its peremptory challenges against blacks, the State, in Yelder, had used its peremptory challenges to strike seventeen of eighteen black jurors, without any objection by Yelder's attorney. Id. at 137. There being no prima facie case of purposeful discrimination, Conner's attorney's failure to object to the State's peremptory challenges can hardly be said to be presumptively prejudicial.