Opinion ID: 2378907
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Failing to Present Evidence to support Batson Claim

Text: Shurn complains about trial counsel's failure to present evidence of the prosecutor's history of striking black venirepersons. Shurn filed affidavits in the motion court from nine attorneys stating that the St. Louis County prosecutor exercised peremptory challenges to remove venirepersons on the basis of race. The trial court found in this case that the prosecutor's reasons for striking the black venirepersons were valid and racially neutral. Evidence of a practice by the prosecutor's office would not have refuted this finding. Shurn could only have rebutted the trial court's finding with evidence that the prosecutor's use of strikes was racially motivated. State v. Parker, 836 S.W.2d 930, 939 (Mo. banc), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 113 S.Ct. 636, 121 L.Ed.2d 566 (1992). Trial counsel's failure to produce the affidavits did not prejudice Shurn.