Opinion ID: 1189145
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Mary Silvas

Text: Faller explained that he had excused Silvas because she was female, had a child about the age of one of the defendants, and had not even thought about the death penalty  which Faller felt indicated a lack of commitment to consider seriously what she would do during sentencing. Although the majority simply rejects each of these reasons as disingenuous, the trial court could reasonably have found that at least the last two reasons demonstrated that Faller had not excluded her because she was Hispanic. As discussed above, Faller excluded other jurors who he thought might feel undue sympathy for the defendants because of age identification and he excused at least one non-Hispanic juror, Jill Moffitt, who  like Silvas  had children of about the defendants' age. In addition, throughout the voir dire Faller utilized peremptory challenges frequently with respect to jurors who indicated either that they would not or might not vote for the death penalty. [5] The trial court could have found that Faller did not want to take a chance that Silvas  who stated that she had not even thought about the death penalty  might decide that she could not impose such a penalty when called on to consider the issue during trial.