Opinion ID: 1722483
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Analysis of the Trial Judge's Rulings

Text: During voir dire questioning as to opinions about the death penalty, Juror Faircloth opined that a person ought to get what he give[s.] While he stated that he could impose a life sentence, depending on the circumstances, for a rape and murder or for a bank robbery and murder, he conceded he strongly agrees with the death penalty. Juror Owen stated that she believes in the death penalty and could recommend it for several mass murderers mentioned by the prosecutor. When asked if she could consider mitigating circumstances, she first quoted the scriptural eye for an eye language. However, she answered affirmatively about her willingness to recommend a life sentence under appropriate circumstances, adding that she was more turned the other way and probably would have difficulty, but would have to hear the evidence. Faircloth and Owen were not challengeable for cause because they stated they could recommend life imprisonment in hypothetical situations postulated by the prosecutor and their attitude toward the death penalty apparently would not prevent or substantially impair them from making an impartial decision as a juror in accordance with their instructions and their oath. La.Code Crim. Proc. art. 798(2)(b). However, they expressed strong feelings favorable to the concept of capital punishment, as noted by the trial court in denying the cause challenges against these two. Their attitude toward the death penalty therefore strongly supported the race-neutral reasons furnished by defense counsel after the prosecutor objected on Batson-McCollum grounds to the peremptory challenges. On the other hand, Juror Pietrzykowski, although stating in voir dire that he believe[s] in the death penalty, but it really depends on the facts of the case, emphasized that he would want to know and understand all of the facts before deciding on a recommendation. In a final question concerning the effect on his decision of information about the commutation power of the governor, he answered he absolutely could still recommend a life sentence in a capital case and would respect any decision by the governor after he himself had been confronted with this very difficult decision. While Pietrzykowski believed in the death penalty as appropriate punishment in certain cases, he hardly could be characterized as pro death, the term used by defense counsel as the sole race-neutral reason for the peremptory challenge. [6] His perception of the need for knowledge of all the facts and of a juror's awesome responsibility in making this difficult decision clearly supported the trial court's decision that defense counsel's peremptory challenge of Pietrzykowski was racially motivated and that the race-neutral reason was pretextual. The decision regarding Juror Berry presented a closer question. In voir dire Berry first stated his belief that the death penalty is appropriate for some crimes and agreed that the penalty is definitely appropriate for mass murderers named by the prosecutor and probably appropriate for a rape and murder. The following exchange then took place: Q. Would you also be able to consider a life sentence depending on what evidence you might hear at the sentencing phase if you got that far? A. I can't contemplate what that would be right now that make that would make me change my mind. Q. Change your mind from what? A. That the person should get the death penalty like in the case you represented about he raped somebody and murdered them right after that. Q. Would you like me to give you some examples of things that you might hear at the penalty phase which the judge would tell you you should consider in making that decision? A. (Nods head up and down) Q. The judge will tell you that there arethere's a list that our legislature has provided of mitigating circumstances. The judge will also tell you that that list is illustrative and not exhaustive. Several of those mitigating circumstances are as follows, or could be: The youth of the offender at the time of the offense. Teenager versus a mature person such as yourself. The fact that the offender was under the domination or control of somebody else at the time. Of Mice and Men kind of thing, if you know what I am talking about. Steinbeck's book. A. (Nods head up and down) Q. Another mitigating circumstances might be that at the time of the commission of the offense, even though the offender knew the difference between right and wrong, he was suffering from some mental disease or defect which caused his thinking process to not be what a regular person's thinking process is. Those are the sort of things and again only an illustrative list that I have just provided, of things that you very may well here [sic] at a sentencing phase. Mitigating circumstances being reasons for you and the jurors to consider in not imposing the death penalty. I have given you have a couple of examples. If you were chosen to sit on the jury and you did reach the penalty phase, would you consider those sort of things, especially if the judge orders that you must consider them? A. Yeah, I think that would be reasonable. Q. Now, let's go one step further than that. To consider something means not only to be able to have it in your mind but have it in your heart as well. So when I ask each of you if you could consider a death penalty, I'm asking if you could come back in court and tell somebody they have to be executed for what they did? A. No. Q. When I ask you if you can consider mitigating circumstances, I am asking you can you not only consider them and think about them, but come back in court and tell a person who has committed a first degree murder, you have to go to jail the rest of your life for what you did. A. (Nods head up and down) Q. Now that we've gone into that, I know what your feelings are about the death penalty. Could you consider a life sentence as well? Not knowing anything about the facts of the case, are you open to both possibilities? A. I believe I could. Obviously it's not something I would want to do to either one of those cases. I don't relish having somebody's life in my hands, but I believe I could render either one of those, yes. (emphasis added). Thus, Berry, after an initial negative reaction to mitigation, willingly listened to and accepted examples of mitigating circumstances, and he later stated that he would want to know as much as possible about the crime as well as about the accused, such as mental capacity and other reasons he should not be given the death penalty. Berry concluded by stating that while the death penalty is appropriate for some crimes, he could consider and impose a life sentence, as well as a death sentence, in a capital case in which he was selected to serve on the jury. He further asserted that knowledge of the governor's commutation power would not have any bearing on my opinion as to a life sentence. The basic theme of the Batson analysis for determining the validity of an objection to a racially motivated peremptory challenge was to require the objecting party to establish a prima facie showing of racial discrimination and to allow the party exercising the challenge to explain the reasons other than race which motivated the challenge, and then to trust to the good judgment and fair-mindedness of the trial judge the determination of whether the objecting party has established purposeful racial discrimination. Batson, 476 U.S. at 97-98, 106 S.Ct. 1712. Recognizing the variety of jury selection practices across the nation, the Court declined to instruct the state and federal trial courts on how best to implement the required analysis, but emphasized that the trial judge's findings in the context of such a determination of purposeful racial discrimination will turn on evaluation of credibility and ordinarily must be accorded great deference. The Court thus recognized both the constitutional necessity of prohibiting purposeful racial discrimination in the selection of jurors and the difficulty of administering the prohibition. This court, subsequent to Batson, also recognized the sensitive role of the trial judge in protecting against purposeful racial discrimination during the supervision of voir dire under the Batson guidelines. In State v. Collier, 553 So.2d 815 (La.1989), this court reversed the overruling of a Batson objection because the trial judge simply accepted the prosecutor's explanation for his challenges, which were facially neutral, without assessing the weight and credibility of the explanation. Indeed, Collier is the only case since Batson in which this court overturned a trial judge's ruling on a Batson or McCollum objection to a peremptory challenge, and the Collier holding was supported by unusual inconsistencies in the reasons given by the prosecutor for the peremptory challenges. The decisive question in the Batson analysis is whether the race-neutral explanation should be believed. Hernandez, 500 U.S. at 365, 111 S.Ct. 1859. In the present case, a juror's leaning toward the death penalty, of course, is a race-neutral reason. However, the voir dire responses of Berry and Pietrzykowski showed that their attitudes toward capital punishment fell far short of justifying a cause challenge and also indicated that the proffered race-neutral reason could be viewed as a pretext for discrimination. The trial judge reasonably surmised that defense counsel struck the entire group of four white jurors out of dissatisfaction because the tales jurors from the other court were mostly white and in hope of obtaining more black persons in the next group called for voir dire. Earlier complaints by defense counsel regarding the race of jurors, plus previous Batson and McCollum challenges by each side, showed that racial animus infected the voir dire and were reasonably seen as indicators of defense counsel's intent to remove these white prospective jurors because of their race. The trial judge carefully considered the matter and made a thoughtful decision based on his perceptions of the motivation of defense counsel during the lengthy voir dire. In view of the vast amount of deference to be accorded to the findings of the trial judge in this context, we cannot say that the trial judge was clearly wrong in choosing not to believe the race-neutral explanation and in ruling that purposeful racial discrimination motivated the peremptory challenges.