Opinion ID: 800764
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Wilbert Stearn

Text: Wilbert Stearn is a struck juror for whom the State's race-neutral justification simply doesn't hold up. At the time of the trial, Stearn was employed as a steel worker; he previously had been a grammar schoolteacher for several years. The ASA also noted that Stearn was a music major in college and his wife was a teacher. He was quite critical of Stearn's job change. He claimed that Stearn's move from a teaching position, which he had held for many years and for which he had gone to graduate school, to a blue-collar type job was a matter that gave [him] pause. The ASA said that without having had a chance to talk to him at length and get to know him better, I did not feel that I could understand exactly what Mr. Stearn would do on that jury or what his feelings or prejudices might be.... He was not the type of juror from ... his background, that I would have wanted on my jury. There is nothing suspicious about Stearn's job change. As the father of 7 children, it is unsurprising that he would leave his teaching job for what no doubt was a higher paying job. The trial court erred in finding that there was something suspicious about a person who was a teacher who took another job of conceivably a lesser status, although a higher pay. This explanation for striking Stearn smacks of pretext. Job change aside, Stearn otherwise fits the prosecutor's description of a desirable juror. The fact that a stricken juror should have been an ideal juror in the eyes of a prosecutor is one of those relevant circumstances to be considered in deciding whether Harris has raised an inference of purposeful discrimination. See Miller-El II, 545 U.S. at 247, 125 S.Ct. 2317. The ASA claimed that he was basically looking for people that ha[d] strong roots to the community and a substantial investment in living in the city. He said that he considered such factors as whether they were homeowners, whether they had lived in the same community or location for a number of years, the types of jobs they had, how often they changed jobs, how long they had been at their current job, and whether they had advanced, moved laterally or moved down, and if they have families, whether their families had roots in the community. Granted, the ASA also said that he considered whether the juror had changed professions from a more academically oriented profession to a less academically oriented profession or vice versa. At the time of the trial, Stearn was 53 years old, married, and, as noted, the father of 7 children. He had lived in Chicago for almost 20 years and owned his own home where he had lived for 15 years. He was employed as a roller line leader at U.S. Steel, where he had worked for 14 years, and he was well-educated with a bachelor's degree and 11/2 years of graduate studies in education. The Illinois Supreme Court noted Harris's claim that Stearn had strong ties to the community and then said that [t]hough a minority venireperson may otherwise possess all of the traits which the State is looking for in a juror, he may possess an additional trait which makes him undesirable. Harris I, 135 Ill.Dec. 861, 544 N.E.2d at 382. The court next discussed the contention that the State allowed a white teacher (Folan) onto the jury, correctly observing that evidence that a stricken minority venireperson possessed the same characteristics as a nonminority juror ... [accepted by the State] should certainly be given great weight by the trial court in evaluating the State's explanations. Id. Nonetheless, the court concluded that the fact that a white teacher (Folan) served on the jury did not give rise to pretext because by the time the white teacher was questioned during voir dire, the State had exercised all of its peremptory challenges. As a result, the State had no choice as to whether or not it should exercise a peremptory challenge. Id. Harris has shown that the State used its 20th and final peremptory challenge against Robert Allan, who was questioned right before Folan, and the State did not exercise this challenge until after Allan, Folan, and several others had been questioned. Therefore, the state court's determination that by the time the white teacher (Folan) was questioned during voir dire, the State had exercised all of its peremptory challenges and thus could not decide whether or not to exercise a challenge against her, was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts. The fact that this justification for striking Stearnbecause he was married to a teacherwould apply equally (if not more so) to Folan who herself was a teacher, and the fact that the State had the opportunity to strike her but did not, shows that this explanation was pretextual. Moreover, the fact that the State accepted Folan but struck Stearn should have been given appropriate weight by the state court in evaluating the State's justifications for striking Stearn. It wasn't, though, since the state court erroneously rejected the comparison of Stearn to Folan. The final reason offered to explain the strike of Stearn was that he was a music major. The ASA explained that a person with a music or other liberal arts major was the type of person who tends to be creative and considers matters outside the evidence and may go beyond the strictures of the law. Although this explanation made no sense to the trial judge, he credited it, noting that it had to be scrutinize[d] to see whether that is a cover for a racial motivation[.] Although the Illinois Supreme Court mentioned this explanation, it did not directly address it. See id., 135 Ill.Dec. 861, 544 N.E.2d at 381-82. The implausibility of the music major rationale is reinforced by the pretextual significance of the other justifications offered for the strike of Stearn. See, e.g., Snyder, 552 U.S. at 478, 128 S.Ct. 1203; Miller-El II, 545 U.S. at 251-52, 125 S.Ct. 2317. The only reasonable inference that can be drawn from all the circumstances in the record is that the reasons offered for the strike of Stearn were pretexts for discrimination. Thus, the state court's acceptance of the prosecution's justifications for the strike of Stearn was unreasonable.