Opinion ID: 2066016
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Lavita Bluit

Text: During voir dire, Bluit advised the court that she lived on the west side of the City of Chicago and was unemployed. She stated that her hobbies were baseball, volleyball, and babysitting. She had never been a juror before, and stated that she could be fair and follow the law as instructed by the judge. The prosecutors told the court at the Batson hearing on remand that they challenged Bluit because they feared she might not take seriously her responsibility as a juror. The State pointed out that Bluit was only 19 years old, which the prosecution believed was too young to serve on the defendant's jury in the present cause. Also, the prosecutors stated that they found Bluit to be immature. They looked disfavorably on her statement that her hobbies included babysitting, and believed she had been inconsistent in the answers given on her jury card. The court agreed with the State's assessment of Bluit, offering the observation that she was the youngest    of those prospective jurors remaining in the venire. The trial court noted that Bluit responded inappropriately, lacked attentive demeanor, was unemployed with no work experience and lacked technical, scientific, or detail-oriented occupational experience. Lack of maturity, inappropriate demeanor, and unemployment are all valid grounds to exercise a peremptory challenge with respect to a prospective juror. ( Kitchen, 159 Ill.2d at 22, 201 Ill.Dec. 1, 636 N.E.2d 433.) All of those attributes were present in prospective juror Bluit. The trial court's ruling was not manifestly erroneous.