Opinion ID: 1725949
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 14

Heading: whether the trial court erred in refusing to allow thorson to effectively cross-examine the prosecutor.

Text: ¶ 17. Thorson also asserts that the trial court erred by not allowing him to extensively cross-examine Grissom. The trial judge informed Thorson that the only cross-examination of Grissom that he would allow would be simple clarification as to something that is on the document that was used by the district attorney in today's testimony .... The trial judge reasoned that if he had required the prosecution to give race-neutral reasons at the trial, the defendant would have been able to rebut those reasons, but he would not have been able to cross-examine the prosecutor. Thus, the trial judge concluded that Thorson should not be able to extensively cross examine the prosecutor during the Batson hearing. ¶ 18. In Batson v. Kentucky , the Supreme Court expressly declined to impose a procedure on the lower courts defining how a Batson hearing should be conducted. Batson, 476 U.S. at 99 n. 24, 106 S.Ct. 1712 n. 24. In United States v. Garrison , the Court held that the appellant misconstrued the purpose of a Batson hearing when he insisted that he was entitled to an evidentiary hearing in which the prosecutor and defense attorney could be examined and cross examined. United States v. Garrison, 849 F.2d 103, 106 (4th Cir.1988). The Garrison Court noted that a Batson inquiry was not meant to be an intrusion on the trial proceedings, but rather an opportunity for the prosecutor to articulate a race neutral reason for striking a juror in the particular case. Garrison, 849 F.2d at 106. Although adversarial, the nature of a Batson hearing does not rise to the level of a mini-trial, and the defendant is not entitled to cross-examine the prosecutor. United States v. Roan Eagle, 867 F.2d 436, 441 (8th Cir.1989). ¶ 19. In the case sub judice, the state presented a race-neutral reason for each venire person it struck. Thorson was even given a limited opportunity to cross-examine the prosecutor regarding the notes on which he based his testimony. This opportunity was more than he would have been entitled to if the prosecutor had been required to enumerate his race-neutral reasons at trial and the case had not been remanded for a Batson hearing. It was never intended that a Batson hearing be a full blown evidentiary hearing, and we choose to follow the majority of jurisdictions that have already held that a defendant is not entitled to cross-examine the prosecutor at a Batson hearing [8] . Thus, we find that the trial court was correct in not allowing a full-blown cross-examination of the prosecutor.