Opinion ID: 2534025
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Batson ruling and remedy

Text: Foster contends that the district court erred in rejecting his claims that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to properly object to the trial court's Batson decision and remedy and that his appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to assert any claims of error on appeal with respect to the trial court's resolution of the Batson issue. We disagree. During jury selection, Foster's counsel exercised peremptory challenges to five women in the jury venire, prompting a Batson challenge from the prosecutor. A hearing was held in chambers outside the presence of the jury. After finding a pattern of gender discriminatory strikes by defense counsel, the trial court considered reseating the last woman juror, the only one of the challenged women remaining in the courthouse. After a discussion with counsel, the judge announced that instead she would dismiss the entire venire and start jury selection over. Foster's counsel objected, stating he did not think it was fair to Foster to strike a venire that included an African-American male, which in counsel's opinion was a rarity in that court. Foster's counsel wanted the same venire, but he also did not want the last woman juror reinstated, citing possible bias because the juror was aware that the defense had exercised a peremptory challenge striking her from the panel. The trial court ruled that Foster's counsel couldn't have it both ways, and gave the defense the option of either choosing an entirely new venire, or utilizing the same venire with the woman juror at issue reseated with a curative instruction. After consulting with Foster, defense counsel chose to keep the venire, but preserved his objection to reinstating the woman juror on the record. The State concurred with the decision to reinstate the juror instead of selecting an entirely new venire. It is not clear from the record before this court if a curative instruction was ever given to the reseated juror.