Opinion ID: 1182062
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Wheeler Challenges

Text: (7a) Two Black men, Carlos Brewer and Henry Freeman, were peremptorily challenged by the prosecutor. Defendant objected to the challenges based on the rule of People v. Wheeler (1978) 22 Cal.3d 258 [148 Cal. Rptr. 890, 583 P.2d 748], and Batson v. Kentucky (1986) 476 U.S. 79 [90 L.Ed.2d, 106 S.Ct. 1712]. In each case, after the objection was interposed, the trial court asked the prosecutor to place on the record his reasons for the challenges. On consideration of the reasons, the court overruled the objections, finding no prima facie case of racial discrimination had been made out. (8) Under the procedure we adopted in Wheeler, the burden of showing a peremptory challenge is not based on group bias does not shift to the prosecutor until a prima facie case of such bias has been made. ( Wheeler, supra, 22 Cal.3d at pp. 281-283.) (7b) Although the trial court here inquired into the prosecutor's reasons for the two challenges before determining whether a prima facie case had been made, its failure to follow the prescribed procedure did not constitute error. Assuming, arguendo, a prima facie case of Wheeler discrimination was made out, the prosecutor articulated a race-neutral explanation related to the case, i.e., a specific bias as opposed to group bias for each of the challenged jurors. ( People v. Johnson (1989) 47 Cal.3d 1194, 1216 [255 Cal. Rptr. 569, 767 P.2d 1047].) As to Brewer, the prosecutor pointed to his statement on voir dire examination that a nickel and dime impromptu robbery might not merit the death penalty. Although Brewer later attempted to shift the emphasis from the amount involved in the robbery to the humanity of the crime, his statement afforded a basis for peremptory challenge grounded in the specific facts of this case. This case could well have been characterized as a nickel and dime impromptu robbery in the prospective juror's mind, evincing a possible bias against the death penalty. As to Freeman, the prosecutor pointed to voir dire statements that Freeman did not believe in the death penalty and would change the law to eliminate it and did not like to sit in judgment of others. Again, in a death penalty prosecution including a robbery special circumstance, the record supports the existence of a specific bias supporting the peremptory challenge. On appeal, defendant seeks to place his objection to the peremptory challenges on federal Constitution, Sixth Amendment as well as Wheeler ( supra, 22 Cal.3d 258) grounds. Having failed to raise a Sixth Amendment argument below, defendant has waived it. On the merits, he offers nothing to show a Sixth Amendment ground would justify a different result with respect to the peremptory challenges. Regardless of the legal ground asserted, the prosecutor's challenges were specifically grounded in particular facts; they evinced no group bias so as to deprive defendant of any of his rights.