Opinion ID: 2508191
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Did the Trial Court Err in Overruling Drennan's Objection When the State Struck an African-American From the Jury Panel in Violation of Batson v. Kentucky?

Text: Drennan objected to the State's peremptory strike of an African-American woman from the jury panel. The trial court asked the State for a race-neutral explanation for the strike and found that explanation to be satisfactory. At that time, Drennan also informed the court that the State had already struck the only other two minority members of the jury panel. The trial court initially found that Drennan had waived his objections to those two previous strikes by failing to object, but after trial upon Drennan's motion for a directed verdict, the trial court reconsidered its decision and ruled that Drennan had not waived his objections. The trial court then conducted the hearing required by Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 90 L. Ed. 2d 69, 106 S. Ct. 1712 (1986). Although the court found that Drennan had failed to make a prima facie showing that the State had made the strikes of two of the panel members on the basis of race, the court allowed the State to give a race-neutral explanation for the strikes. The court then found that Drennan had failed to carry his burden of establishing purposeful discrimination. The standard of review where a Batson challenge is involved was recently stated in State v. Washington, 275 Kan. 644, Syl. ¶¶ 1-3, 68 P.3d 134 (2003): In reviewing a challenge under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 90 L. Ed. 2d 69, 106 S. Ct. 1712, (1986), concerning the State's use of a peremptory challenge, the applicable appellate standard of review is whether the trial court abused its discretion in determining if the challenged strikes were constitutionally permissible. Judicial discretion is abused only when exercised in an arbitrary, fanciful, or unreasonable manner, or in other words, when no reasonable person would take the view adopted by the trial court. The Batson analysis involves a three-step process. First, the defendant must make a prima facie showing that the prosecutor has exercised peremptory challenges on the basis of race. Second, if the requisite showing has been made, the burden shifts to the prosecutor to articulate a race-neutral explanation for striking the jurors in question. In this second step, the prosecutor is only required to put forth a facially valid reason for exercising a peremptory strike to satisfy the second step of the Batson analysis. Finally, the trial court must determine whether the defendant has carried his or her burden of proving purposeful discrimination. On appeal, the reviewing court is required to accept as true the statements of fact given by the prosecutor for purposes of determining whether the prosecutor gave race-neutral reasons for the strike if the defendant failed to object to the statement. Where, as here, the trial court has ruled on the ultimate question of discrimination, the preliminary issue of whether the defendant made a prima facie showing of discrimination becomes moot. See State v. Douglas, 274 Kan. 96, 102, 49 P.3d 446 (2002), cert. denied 537 U.S. 1198 (2003). The State explained its peremptory strikes on the basis that one person, a widow and Cessna worker, frowned during the entire jury selection process. The second person was an instrument technician at Mid-Continent Instrument, which as the prosecutor explained, is a profession that required precision, and those types of professions are sometimes difficult for the State, and in moving forward in a case where we are looking at reasonable doubt as opposed to a hundred percent accuracy. And he was struck on that basis. As to the last of the three panel members at issue, the State gave the following explanation: [T]he State did ask [the panel member] questions concerning her use of alcohol, and the responses, her body language and her response required her, indicated to us that she might be somewhat protective of an individual who was a drinker or an enabler, and for that reason, for that reading made by the State, it was why we struck her. The record reflects that, when asked about having experience with persons who are alcoholics, the panel member responded, I hang around with my family, but they drink and I don'tI justI'm their chauffeur. I don't like them drinking. If they drink, I like to protect them so I go with them where ever they have to go. With regard to the second step of the Batson analysis, the State's race-neutral explanation need not be persuasive or even plausible, it need only be facially valid. Unless a discriminatory intent is inherent in the prosecutor's explanation, the reason offered will be deemed race neutral. Washington, 275 Kan. at 654. There is no discriminatory intent inherent in the State's explanations for striking the three minority persons from the jury panel. While some of the explanations do not seem particularly compelling, that is not the test. The State's explanations were at least facially valid; thus, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding that Drennan failed to prove purposeful discrimination.