Opinion ID: 719769
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Jury Impanelment

Text: 10 Hunter next argues that the government improperly used peremptory challenges to remove African Americans from the venire on the basis of their race, in violation of the principles established in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986). The Supreme Court has articulated a three-step analysis for evaluating Batson claims. Id. at 96-98, 106 S.Ct. at 1722-24. First, the defendant must make a prima facie showing that the prosecutor exercised peremptory challenges on the basis of race. Id. at 96-97, 106 S.Ct. at 1722-23. If the defendant makes this requisite showing, the burden shifts to the prosecutor to provide a race-neutral reason for striking the prospective juror. Id. at 97-98, 106 S.Ct. at 1723-24. The district court then must decide whether the defendant carried his burden of proving purposeful discrimination. Id. at 98, 106 S.Ct. at 1724. 11 The district court conducted a Batson inquiry, and concluded that Hunter had not established a prima facie Batson violation because the government had used its peremptory challenges to strike only some of the African Americans from the venire, and because several other African Americans had asked to be excused for other reasons. The court further found that even if Hunter had made a prima facie showing, the prosecutor had given valid race-neutral reasons for the challenged strikes. Because the district court's determination that the government did not discriminate hinges on its evaluations of the credibility of both potential jurors and the prosecutor, we accord it great deference and will not disturb it absent clear error. United States v. Brown, 34 F.3d 569, 571 (7th Cir.1994), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 1136, 130 L.Ed.2d 1097 (1995). 12 Hunter objected to the government's peremptory challenges of four venire members. In response, the prosecutor indicated that he had challenged one prospective juror because of his limited education, his youth, his unstable employment history, his unmarried status, his lack of family roots and ties to the community, and the fact that he lived at home with his parents. The prosecutor explained that he struck the second prospective juror because she had not completed high school, was separated from her husband, and had no job. The government challenged the third panel member because of a gut feeling based in part on the extremely nervous, hesitant, and unhappy way she had answered voir dire questions, as well as her unmarried status. Finally, the government explained that it struck the fourth prospective juror because she had only a high school education and because her confused answers to certain voir dire questions called into question her ability to follow the complex evidence during the trial. 13 We find nothing clearly erroneous in the district court's determination that Hunter failed to establish a Batson violation. Even assuming that Hunter made a prima facie showing that the government challenged the four prospective jurors because of their race, the reasons the government gave are valid, race-neutral reasons for striking prospective jurors. See, e.g., United States v. Brown, 34 F.3d at 572 (unemployed status); United States v. Marin, 7 F.3d 679, 687 (7th Cir.1993), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 739, 126 L.Ed.2d 702 (1994) (lack of education); United States v. Williams, 934 F.2d 847, 849-50 (7th Cir.1991) (age and marital status); United States v. Briscoe, 896 F.2d 1476, 1489 (7th Cir.), cert. denied sub nom. Usman v. United States, 498 U.S. 863, 111 S.Ct. 173, 112 L.Ed.2d 137 (1990) (intuitive assumptions that are not fairly quantifiable). The district court credited the government's explanations, and absent some exceptional circumstance, we give conclusive weight to the district court's credibility determinations. Hunter's Batson claim fails.