Opinion ID: 800764
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Lucille Woodard

Text: Let's begin with Lucille Woodard. In explaining the use of a peremptory strike against her, the ASA said: As to Lucille Woodard, there were missing elements in her [juror] card. The fact that she was divorced. There was no indication of where her husband had been employed, and the age of the juror was not indicated on the card either. The area that Lucille Woodard lived is basically the same area where this incident took place, but overall, I will say that I did not have a lot of information about Lucille Woodard. There was nothing that jumped out at me that would make her an unacceptable juror the way many of the other jurors that I have been mentioning did. The ASA continued: And I think from what I have been able to glean from the transcript is that she was not excused by the State or by the defense at the end of that day. It's my understanding that she was still under consideration as a potential juror the next day. The questioning of her was somewhat truncated probably because of the hour when she was questioned. She was ... one of the very last jurors to be questioned that day, if not the last one, and what would happen then, if I may state for the record, because it definitely influences the way I select jurors, the way I did select jurors in this courtroom. What your Honor would do would be to have 14 people in the jury box, and you would question each and every one of them as a group, and then we would excuse ourselves to your chambers where we would put out the cards in the order that they are in the jury box, and then the State would select the four jurors in line that would make up the first panel, and the second panel, and the third panel, exercising peremptory challenges in your chambers area, out of the view of the jury itself. What would have happened with Lucille Woodard is that when we began the next session with new jurors, she would have been sitting in the first seat herself, and then we'd complete the box filled up with new potential jurors. I don't have a clear recollection of Lucille Woodard. I don't remember her from the questions that were asked of her, and it's very probable that I did not remember a lot about her the next day. (Emphasis added). The ASA explained that Woodard was seated in the jury box with 13 prospective jurors he had just heard about and of whom he would have had a very keen knowledge. But for Woodard, the information was very sketchy to begin with, and by the next day I'm sure it was much sketchier. He added: I believe I exercised a peremptory challenge against Lucille Woodard because of that lack of knowledge and the fact that her card wasn't complete, ... but also because I had new jurors in the box that, from that next day, that I did have very good information about, and jurors that I did want to have on my jury, and not just jurors that I did not want. (Emphasis added). The Illinois Supreme Court concluded that this was a race-neutral, clear, and reasonably specific reason for exercising the peremptory challenge. Harris I, 135 Ill.Dec. 861, 544 N.E.2d at 383. The court determined that the State... knew precisely why it exercised its challenge: the State exercised its challenge because due to the timing and order of questioning during voir dire, the prosecutor had lost his recollection of the ... venireperson. As a result, the prosecutor did not have enough information about the venireperson to feel comfortable with having her on the jury. Id. The State's decision is unreasonable. True, Woodard was the second to last venireperson examined on the first day of trial and was still under consideration the next day when 11 others were examined before the exercise of any further peremptory strikes. See id., 135 Ill.Dec. 861, 544 N.E.2d at 382. The ASA said that the questioning of Woodard was somewhat truncated. To the contrary, the trial judge asked 21 questions of Woodard on the following subjects: where she lived, her occupation, her employer, her length of employment, her prior employment, where she attended high school, how long she lived in Chicago, the type of work her former husband did, her child, whether she or any close friends or family members had ever been a crime victim, and when she answered affirmatively, the judge asked her about the circumstances of the victimization and whether that would interfere with her ability to hear the case on trial and give both sides a fair trial. The judge also asked her whether she or any close friends or family members had ever been accused by the police of any criminal matters, and again questioned whether she could give both sides a fair trial in the case. Nothing in the record suggests that the questioning of Woodard was truncated. Questions comparable in number and topic were put to the other venirepersons, even those questioned on the second day of jury selection. Furthermore, the record shows that the ASA did not know why he struck Woodard. No doubt the passage of time played a part in his inability to recollect the reasons for striking her. See Miller-El I, 537 U.S. at 342-43, 123 S.Ct. 1029 (noting that the evidence presented at the Batson hearing two years after the trial was subject to the usual risks of imprecision and distortion from the passage of time). The ASA's testimony at the Batson hearing suggests that he was not reciting his recollection of his reasons for the strike but rather was looking at the record and trying to come up with race-neutral reasons to justify the strike. (This was true throughout his testimony at the belated Batson hearing.) It is insufficient for a prosecutor merely to identify race-neutral reasons why the State could have exercised a strike against a prospective juror; instead, the prosecutor must give a `clear and reasonably specific' explanation of his `legitimate reasons' for exercising the challenges.  Batson, 476 U.S. at 98 n. 20, 106 S.Ct. 1712 (quoting Texas Dep't of Comm. Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 258, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981) (emphasis added)). The ASA testified that at the time he exercised the strike, he lacked information about Woodard and probably could not recall much about her from the day before. If he didn't have a clear recollection of Woodard the very next day after she was questioned, we can reasonably doubt that his memory had improved by the time of the Batson hearing more than 3 years later. If the ASA is to be believed, he basically wasted a peremptory strike on Woodard. That would contradict his claim that the State's exercise of strikes was based on comparative choices among jurors and gives rise to an inference that the proffered reasons for striking Woodard were pretexts for discrimination. It is true that the trial court's credibility determinations are to be given substantial deference. This is based on the concept that the trial judge is intimately involved in the jury selection process and is face-to-face with the participants. But the discussion of the ASA's credibility by the trial judge did not take place during the jury selection process, shortly after the exercise of the challenged strikes. Instead, the court's comments were made some 3 years after the strikes were made. And as we discuss throughout this opinion, the ASA's explanation of the reasons for the strikes appears to have been recreated, principally from reviewing the transcripts of the jury selection process, again roughly 3 years after the strikes were used. We don't doubt that the ASA appeared to be sincere when giving his testimony about the strikes. But the problem is that his stated reasons for the Woodard strike (and others that we discuss) are contradicted by the comparison with other jurors that were acceptable to the State. As such, the conclusory comments by the trial judge about the ASA's credibility ring hollow. Cf. Miller-El II, 545 U.S. at 241 n. 1, 125 S.Ct. 2317 (suggesting that a lengthy delay between voir dire and the post-trial Batson hearing weakens the deference due state courts' factual findings); Rutledge, 648 F.3d at 562 (recognizing that the passage of time may preclude the trial court from making findings as to the prosecutor's credibility at Batson 's third step); United States v. McMath, 559 F.3d 657, 666 (7th Cir.2009) (noting that the passage of time [may] make it impossible for the [trial] judge to make findings of fact but a remand may be more worthwhile in this case, as voir dire occurred only a little over a year ago). Although the Illinois Supreme Court did not discuss the other reasons given for striking Woodard, the trial judge did refer to them. He said that in considering all of the reasons given ... I cannot conclude that the peremptory challenge used on Lucille Woodard was used for a racially motivated reason. As support, he noted that the State had accepted Abbott, an African American, about the same time that it struck Woodard. The judge also reasoned that he thought it was proper to make comparative choices among jurors, as long as the comparisons did not take race into account. The fact that the ASA claimed that he struck Woodard because of a lack of knowledge about her while at the same time proceeding to offer several specific reasons for striking her is quite troubling. If the ASA struck her because he didn't have a clear recollection of her, then these other explanations ring hollow. On appeal, respondent asserts that the ASA merely mentioned Woodard's divorce, age, and residencethese were not the reasons for striking her. The record provides no support for this view, which is inconsistent with respondent's arguments as to other challenged jurors for whom he defends the strike on all the reasons mentioned by the ASA. And if we accept the view that the ASA merely mentioned these facts and didn't rely on them as justifications for the strike, his testimony would tend to show that he kept throwing out possible race-neutral reasons for the strike until he thought he found one that would be accepted. As noted, any old reason doesn't cut it; the prosecutor must state his reason for using the challenge. See Batson, 476 U.S. at 98 n. 20, 106 S.Ct. 1712. And there is more. The ASA's recitation of reasons why he may have struck Woodard is inconsistent with other parts of his testimony. The ASA noted that Woodard was divorced; respondent has stated that the ASA was concerned about Woodard's divorce. Yet a few moments later, the ASA claimed that nothing about Woodard jumped out at him that would make her an unacceptable juror. What happened to his concern about her divorce? And if Woodard's divorce was a concern to the ASA, then he should also have been concerned that non-African Americans Theresa Najdowski and Ann Folan were divorced. Nevertheless, the State allowed them to serve on the jury. Respondent argues that Folan is not an appropriate comparator because the State had exercised all of its peremptory strikes by the time she was under consideration, but as we explain below, the Illinois Supreme Court's finding that the State had exercised all its peremptory challenges before the white teacher (Folan) was questioned, was an unreasonable factual determination. As for Najdowski, respondent argues that although she was divorced, she was the first person questioned in the venire so she would have been fresh in the ASA's mind when he considered her, in contrast with Woodard. That may be true. But it does not explain why the fact of Woodard's divorce supposedly mattered to the ASA, yet he did not likewise find Najdowski's and Folan's divorces reasons to challenge them. That he didn't tends to prove purposeful discrimination. In considering the strike of Woodard in light of all relevant circumstances, the only reasonable inference that can be drawn is that she was excluded because of her race. It was unreasonable for the state court to credit the race-neutral reasons for striking her.