Opinion ID: 3149414
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Batson Standard of Review

Text: The majority starts off on the wrong foot in its phase three Batson analysis, categorically deferring to the district court under a clear-error standard. The appropriate standard of review, given a context where we share the district court’s task of reviewing a cold record, should be de novo review.4 3 Under Batson step three, I agree with the majority that we could properly consider the new evidence from the 2002 federal evidentiary hearing. See Johnson v. Finn, 665 F.3d 1063, 1069 n.1 (9th Cir. 2011). Our review on this issue is de novo and the evidentiary limitations in § 2254(e)(2) do not apply because Crittenden cannot be faulted for a “lack of diligence” in the state courts. Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 420, 432 (2000). 4 Even under a clear-error standard, I would reverse the district court. The weak evidence of racial motivation, the state court’s factual finding on Casey’s demeanor and decisiveness, and the district court’s reliance on a theory of unconscious bias counsel denial of the petition. CRITTENDEN V. CHAPPELL 51 We routinely recite Rule 52 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the “clear error” standard without putting the rule in context. Notably, in Batson itself, the Court stated that a “reviewing court ordinarily should give [factual findings] great deference,” but only because “the trial judge’s findings in the context under consideration here largely will turn on evaluation of credibility.” 476 U.S. at 98 n.21 (emphasis added). Our cases applying Batson likewise continue to emphasize that deference is due particularly where the facts go to the demeanor and credibility of the prosecutor. Cook, 593 F.3d at 815–16 (quoting Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. 352, 365 (1991)). What gets lost in this case is the layer-upon-layer review at issue. Because there was no step three analysis in the state courts, both we and the district court review the habeas petition de novo. To the extent there were true factual findings at the district court level, I agree that we should evaluate those findings under a “clear error” analysis. However, the reality is that aside from a handful of nondeterminative factual findings made by the magistrate judge, which the district court neither relied on nor contested, the district court was simply reviewing a cold record of documentary evidence. In short, our task is identical to that of the district court: applying the familiar tools of comparative juror analysis to a fixed record. In the unusual context of this case where nothing hinges on testimony from the evidentiary hearing, our review should be de novo. See Holder v. Welborn, 60 F.3d 383, 388 (7th Cir. 1995) (holding that no deference is owed to a district court deciding Batson habeas case on a cold record). The majority and I simply disagree on the standard of review. 52 CRITTENDEN V. CHAPPELL The only factual findings and credibility considerations were made by the magistrate judge at the 2002 evidentiary hearing. At that hearing, the prosecutor testified that he “did not remember anything of significance to the exercise of his peremptory challenge” against Casey, which had occurred some 13 years earlier. (emphasis in original). The magistrate judge found that the prosecutor was “forthright in his factual testimony” about his lack of an independent recollection of the events of Crittenden’s voir dire. Otherwise, the prosecutor testified about administrative matters, such as his handwriting and markings on juror questionnaires. The prosecutor also spoke, in general terms, about his methodology for ranking jurors, though he couldn’t recall why he ranked any particular juror positively or negatively. The magistrate judge credited the prosecutor’s testimony as to those matters and ultimately recommended denying Crittenden’s habeas petition after analyzing the questionnaires and voir dire transcript, concluding that the prosecutor harbored “significant” but not “substantial” bias in striking Casey. The district court did not disturb any of the magistrate’s uncontroversial specific findings, which even if credited do not dictate whether the prosecutor’s peremptory strike against Casey was legitimate. At best, the absence of specific evidence about the prosecutor’s methodology simply means that Crittenden lacks evidence of animus. The district court rejected the magistrate’s ultimate recommendation to deny Crittenden’s habeas petition without holding a new evidentiary hearing, precisely because the live testimony and underlying factual findings from the 2002 hearing do not alter the outcome of the case. See Majority Op. Part III. The district court’s analysis was based entirely on a retrospective review of the records from voir dire. CRITTENDEN V. CHAPPELL 53 The habeas standard of review vis-a-vis Batson depends on which court’s findings and determinations are under review. Of course in Batson itself, the Supreme Court emphasized the importance of giving deference to the trial court and reversing only in the case of clearly erroneous findings. 476 U.S. at 98 n.21. As we explained, “the trial judge’s unique perspective of voir dire enables the judge to have first-hand knowledge and observation of critical events” and to “personally witness[] the totality of circumstances that comprises the ‘factual inquiry’” under Batson, making deference appropriate. Tolbert, 182 F.3d at 683. “An appellate court can read a transcript of the voir dire, but it is not privy to the unspoken atmosphere of the trial court—the nuance, demeanor, body language, expression and gestures of the various players.” Id. at 683–84. None of those rationales for deference apply here, where the federal district court played no role in voir dire, had no occasion to soak in the “unspoken atmosphere of the trial court,” id., and never took stock of the demeanor and body language of the prosecutor and jurors. Nor is this a case in which the district court reconstructed the Batson hearing and following testimony made credibility determinations that affect the disposition of the Batson step three inquiry. The majority states that “the magistrate judge did not make—and hence the district court did not reject—any credibility determination.” Maj. Op. 23. This view is not precisely accurate as the magistrate judge did credit the prosecutor’s testimony—it was just that the prosecutor’s testimony didn’t have any substance. Compare with Harris v. Haeberlin, 752 F.3d 1054, 1061 (6th Cir. 2014) (deferring to federal district court where it made credibility determinations based on newly discovered videotape evidence of voir dire and the prosecutor’s live testimony, so 54 CRITTENDEN V. CHAPPELL that the case turned on “in-person credibility assessments which clearly the district court is in the best position to make”) (internal citation omitted); Jordan v. Lefevre, 293 F.3d 587, 594 (2d Cir. 2002) (holding that, once a district court reconstructs a Batson hearing in federal habeas proceedings, “we will accord deference to the reconstructing court’s credibility assessments”). As a point of stark comparison, a recent Eleventh Circuit case involving a reconstructed Batson hearing is instructive. Madison v. Comm’r, Ala. Dep’t of Corr., 761 F.3d 1240 (11th Cir. 2014). Significantly, in deferring to the district court, the Eleventh Circuit noted that the district court judge did more than consider “the prosecutor’s trial notes and the testimony authenticating it.” Id. at 1247. The court explained: The District Court heard the live testimony of Mr. Madison’s trial prosecutor and had the opportunity to observe his demeanor when he offered his explanations for striking the jurors he did. While [the prosecutor] Mr. Cherry relied on his notes to provide his reasons for striking individual jurors, he never testified that he had no recollection of the decisions he made during Mr. Madison’s voir dire. In fact, Mr. Cherry was able to answer several questions about his strategy in picking the jury, his awareness of the Mobile County District Attorney Office’s history of Batson violations, and his experience as a defense attorney. His testimony about these things went beyond the four corners of his voir dire notes. CRITTENDEN V. CHAPPELL 55 Id. at 1247–48. Because the prosecutor provided substantive testimony and was cross examined by defense counsel, “the District Court was in a superior position to assess [the prosecutor’s] credibility and the genuineness of his explanations for striking black jurors at Batson’s third step.” Id. at 1248. Unlike in Madison, the prosecutor here testified that he had no recollection of Casey and provided no explanation for striking her that “went beyond the four corners of his voir dire notes.” Id. The facts are fixed in a cold record, so our Batson step three analysis involves nothing more than a runof-the-mill review of the voir dire records and comparative juror analysis. This case is closely akin to Welborn, where the Seventh Circuit concluded that de novo review of the federal district court’s Batson step three determination was appropriate: Although the magistrate judge was able to hear the explanations given by the prosecutors at the Batson hearing, she was not in the same position to make credibility determinations as is a trial judge who has the opportunity to observe the responses from the venire and to hear the attorney’s explanation for a peremptory immediately after it is exercised. In fact, the prosecutors admitted that at the time of the Batson hearing, they had little, if any, recollection of the actual voir dire, and found it necessary to testify with aid from the voir dire transcript and from their contemporaneously taken notes. Therefore since [the magistrate judge, the district judge], and the members of this panel all have 56 CRITTENDEN V. CHAPPELL basically been provided with only a cold record from which to determine if a Batson violation occurred at Holder’s jury trial, we find that no deference is warranted under these circumstances. 60 F.3d at 388. Likewise, I conclude that no deference to the federal district court is warranted: the prosecutor had no recollection of why he struck Casey and the magistrate judge, the district court, and the Ninth Circuit are all working from the same decades-old records from voir dire in rendering the ultimate Batson step three determination.