Opinion ID: 1436385
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: a. M.C.'s Objectivity

Text: The prosecutor's assertion that he excused M.C. because she initially hesitated when responding to the court's inquiry about the effect of the molestation incident on her ability to judge Ali's case is wholly unpersuasive, for several reasons. First, to the extent that the attempted molestation of her daughter might affect M.C.'s impartiality, any bias on M.C.'s part logically would favor the prosecution, not the defense. To be believable, a prosecutor's [r]easons must be `related to the particular case to be tried.'  Kesser, 465 F.3d at 359 (quoting Batson, 476 U.S. at 98, 106 S.Ct. 1712). In this case, the victim, Tracey Biletnikoff, was, like M.C.'s daughter, a young woman and the victim of a domestic assault. Moreover, M.C.'s description of the molestation focused entirely on the effect that the incident had on her daughter, with whom M.C. still lives. She stated, for example, that I know that [the molestation incident] does still affect [my daughter] even though she is 22 years old, and we have discussed it recently, before I was called to jury duty. It still has an effect on her. When the trial court asked M.C. if the incident might influence her in evaluating Ali's case, M.C. again focused on her daughter, stating I really don't thinkI don't think it would have any bearing. I don't know. I don't think it would. My daughter is 22 years old. She didn't have to havewe all had to do family counseling. (emphasis added) If anything, then, M.C.'s experience and her description of that experience would suggest that she was more likely than the average juror to identify with the victim of the crime. The State disagrees with this assessment of M.C.'s potential bias, arguing instead that the molestation incident reveals that M.C. may have harbored some sympathy for the perpetrator of the daughter's molestation, M.C.'s stepson. This view simply cannot be squared with the record. Tellingly, M.C. never refers to the perpetrator as either her son or her stepson. Instead, she describes him alternately as [my husband's] child by another lady, the young man, and her daughter's brother. In addition, M.C. stated that the stepson had only lived with the family for three months prior to the incident and was prohibited from contacting her daughter for several years afterwards. There is absolutely no indication that M.C. had any affection for, sense of family responsibility for, or ongoing relationship with the perpetrator. The State nevertheless tenders the following evidence of M.C.'s alleged sympathy for the stepson: First, the State argues that although her stepson received what could be perceived as a light sentence for a molestation that still affected her daughter eight years later, [M.C.] indicated that she thought the process had been fair. The State then suggests, absurdly, that even though the molestation was apparently serious enough to merit police intervention and juvenile court proceedings, [M.C.] appeared to minimize the incident by referring to it as an `attempt of molestation' in her juror questionnaire. Attempted sexual battery is a serious crime in California, see People v. Dixon, 75 Cal.App.4th 935, 942, 89 Cal.Rptr.2d 602 (1999), and could certainly trigger law enforcement action. Nothing in the record indicates that there was actual, as opposed to attempted, molestation. The State's suggestion that M.C. appeared to minimize the incident, rather than to report it accurately, is therefore wholly without merit. Two sentences later the State lurches further from the record when it writes, Indeed, we note that the prosecutor seemed genuinely concerned about [M.C.'s potential sympathy for the defendant], and questioned [M.C.] about whether she might identify with Ali because she had a son in the same age range whom she might be able to picture in the same circumstances. It is true that the prosecutor asked M.C. about having a son the same age as Ali. And it is also true that M.C. expressed some concern over that fact. However, it is equally clear that M.C. was referring to her biological son, with whom she and her daughter live. Contrary to the State's contention, then, there is no evidence in the record from which the prosecutor could have inferred that M.C. harbored sympathy for the stepson. She mentioned him only briefly, did not refer to him as her son or stepson, and expressed clearly and repeatedly her ongoing concern for her daughter and her daughter alone. It is little wonder that neither the prosecutor nor the State put forward this explanation previously. Second, a comparative juror analysis reveals, as one might expect, that the prosecutor favored jurors who had been the victims of domestic abuse or who had friends who had been victims of such abuse, even if the juror indicated that his or her experiences might affect his or her objectivity. Indeed, as in Kesser, it seems that experience with domestic violence and abuse was not a liability, at least in the prosecutor's view. In fact, he might have found [a] woman a good juror precisely because she was the mother of a vulnerable daughter who, like [Ali's girlfriend,] had fallen victim to abuse. 465 F.3d at 367. Juror 6, for example, described during voir dire an event that culminated in her husband's arrest: The husband, while drunk, began to physically abuse the couple's 15 year old son. When Juror 6 intervened, her husband shoved her backwards into the oven door, hard enough to incapacitate Juror 6. The police were called and the husband arrested. Although he spent a night in jail, no charges were filed. As in M.C.'s case, the court asked Juror 6 whether the incident would influence her objectivity when evaluating Ali's case. She replied, I think I would be fair and impartial. It did affect me. I do believe that people do things under the effects of certain drugs or alcohol that maybe they wouldn't ordinarily do. Two questions later, she clarified that she thought drug use was a factor to evaluate, but did not automatically excuse murder. She was not asked follow-up questions regarding her objectivity. Juror 6's status as the direct victim of domestic violence provided her with a slightly closer connection to Biletnikoff than M.C., who was the mother of the victim. Nonetheless, it is difficult to see how her response to the court's question about how the incident would affect her objectivity was less equivocal than M.C.'s initial response. Compare Juror 6 (I think I would be fair and impartial. It did affect me.) with M.C. (first stating I really don't thinkI don't think it would have any bearing. I don't know. I don't think it would[,] but then answering an unequivocal No when asked Would there be any lasting effect on either the defense or the prosecution in this case as a result of your experiences or knowledge about that?). In addition, Juror 6, unlike M.C., did express some sympathy for the perpetrator, noting that people do things under the effects of certain drugs or alcohol that maybe they wouldn't ordinarily do. This statement is particularly relevant in this case, because evidence introduced at trial showed that Ali was a chronic drug user and had been using drugs and alcohol on the days preceding Biletnikoff's murder. A comparison of M.C. to Juror 8 is likewise instructive on this point. Like M.C., Juror 8 had experience with domestic violence. During voir dire, she explained that she had several close friends who have been ... sexually assaulted by some male figure in their life. She also stated that she had a close friend whose father had attempted to kill the friend's mother. When asked how these experiences might affect her approach to this case, she responded, I guess what I was trying to say in the questionnaire was that if I learned that there had been some kind of conflict with, you know, the defendant and the Biletnikoff woman, I might be more sympathetic with the victim. In the questionnaire itself, she had written, I believe that my friend's experiences with sexual abuse by men will make me biased against any man who may have assaulted or murdered a woman. Although she later stated that she could look at [the case] objectively, she had the following exchange with Ali's attorney after making that statement: Q. This is indeed a domestic violence case. How do you think you would be as a juror sitting on this case having those experiences or at least through your friend? A. I cannot say that would not be part of my opinion in my thought process. I wouldn't make a decision just based on the fact that this involves domestic violence. A defendant here shouldn't be guilty just because of that. It's not that. That plays into my thought process, though. . . . Q. Saying that statement, from what I'm hearing, there may be a little bit of bias if you sat as a juror on this case; is that correct? A. That's correct. The prosecutor's failure to strike Juror 8 substantially undermines one of his supposed reasons for striking M.C.that he was concerned about selecting a juror whose past experiences with domestic violence might affect her objectivity as a juror. Juror 8 acknowledged, at several points, that she might have problems remaining impartial if the case involved domestic violence. In addition, Juror 8's statements were far more equivocal than M.C.'s. She vacillated from I might be more sympathetic with the victim to I could look at [the case] objectively and then back to there may be a little bit of bias if [I] sat as a juror on this case. In short, the prosecutor's reason for striking M.C.her equivocal response to a question about the impact of a domestic violence incident on her objectivityapplies with equal or greater force to Jurors 6 and 8, both of whom he accepted. The fact that [a proffered] reason also applied to these other panel members, most of them white, none of them struck, is evidence of pretext. Miller-El, 545 U.S. at 248, 125 S.Ct. 2317. The State argues that a potential juror, D.W., whom the prosecutor peremptorily struck from the jury, not Jurors 6 and 8, is the most appropriate person for a comparative analysis as to the prosecutor's explanation regarding experience with domestic violence. D.W., like M.C., described an incident involving the molestation of one family member by another. In D.W.'s case, his eight-year old son had molested his two-year old daughter. A comparison of M.C. to D.W., however, only confirms that the prosecutor was concerned with the direction of a juror's bias, not with objectivity. As noted, M.C.'s discussion of her daughter's molestation was focused entirely on the effect that the incident had had on her daughter's life. M.C. mentioned the alleged perpetrator, her husband's son by another woman, only briefly and only to point out that the boy had been living with her family for a very short time and was subsequently prohibited from contacting her daughter. By contrast, the focus of D.W.'s discussion was almost exclusively on the actions of his son, the perpetrator of the crime. He even suggested that his daughter, the two-year old victim, did not remember and so was not affected by the incident. The reasonable inference, then, was that D.W. might be more sympathetic to Ali than the average juror. More importantly, D.W. actually expressed a bias in favor of the defendant: DEFENSE: Can you give [the prosecution] a fair case? Can you give them a fair shake? . . . D.W.: I think I can give the prosecution a fair shake. DEFENSE: How about the defense? D.W.: I'm certain I can give the defense a fair shake. M.C., on the other hand, never expressed a preference for the defense. She simply indicated originally that she did not think the molestation incident would affect her and, in the end, stated unequivocally that it would not. An analysis of the record supplies a third reason why the prosecutor's alleged concern with M.C.'s objectivity is implausible: his failure to clear up any lingering doubts about M.C.'s objectivity by asking follow-up questions. See Kesser, 465 F.3d at 364 (`We expect the prosecutor would have cleared up any misunderstanding by asking further questions before getting to the point of exercising a strike.') (quoting Miller-El, 545 U.S. at 244, 125 S.Ct. 2317). After the trial court finished asking M.C. about the molestation incident, including questions about how the incident might affect her objectivity, the court provided the prosecutor with an opportunity to ask questions of his own. He did not do so. This failure to seek clarification is even more striking in light of the fact that the prosecutor did ask a follow-up question on potential bias during the private voir dire of potential juror D.W., who, as noted, also relayed a molestation incident involving family members. At the end of D.W.'s interview, the trial court asked, How do you think the circumstances of this incident would influence you here in this case? D.W. responded, I don't think they have any impact whatsoever. At that point, the judge asked the prosecutor if he had any questions. Unlike in the questioning of M.C., the prosecutor responded affirmatively, and proceeded to ask D.W.: Very briefly. On that last question, sir, good morning. Does itby impact, what we're looking to determine is does it cause you to be sympathetic to people at all that have problems of their own such that it might influence you, or the inverse, or it causes you to be intolerant to somebody that has committed a crime? Do you think it's a problem either way? D.W. responded in the negative. The prosecutor's failure similarly to ask M.C. a follow-up question indicates that his later alleged concern with her objectivity was a make-weight. Further, as it was apparent from D.W.'s responses that D.W.'s biases might lie with the defendant, the follow-up questioning of D.W. confirms once again the prosecutor was concerned with the direction of a prospective juror's bias, not with objectivity. Fourth and finally, while M.C. hesitated in her initial response to a very general question about the effect the molestation incident might have on her judgment as a juror, she later responded to a more specific question about whether the incident would have an effect on either the defense or the prosecution in this case with an unequivocal no. As the district court stated, [t]he record is replete with examples of other [unchallenged] jurors qualifying or even completely changing their answers. Juror 8, for example, vacillated on the issue whether she could remain objective. In her final statement about the issue, Juror 8 actually stated that she would be a little biased, whereas M.C. concluded by stating unequivocally that she could judge Ali's case objectively. Given the answers of other jurors as to potential bias, M.C.'s alleged initial equivocal statements about her ability to remain objective could not have been a neutral reason for excusing her from jury service in the case. In sum, a comparison of M.C. to Jurors 6 and 8 and to potential juror D.W. demonstrates that the prosecutor favored potential jurors who, like M.C., were likely to sympathize with the victim and disfavored those, like D.W., who may have been biased towards the defendant. This comparative analysis therefore leads to only one reasonable conclusion: the prosecutor's asserted concern about objectivity was not an actual reason for his decision to strike M.C., but was pretext.