Opinion ID: 1059907
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Peremptory strikes by the Commonwealth

Text: In Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 89, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 1719, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), the United States Supreme Court held that purposeful discrimination based on race in selecting jurors violates the Equal Protection Clause. If an accused makes a prima facie showing of the prosecution's use of peremptory strikes on the basis of race, the burden shifts to the prosecution to articulate race-neutral reasons for such strikes. Chichester v. Commonwealth, 248 Va. 311, 323, 448 S.E.2d 638, 646 (1994), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1166, 115 S.Ct. 1134, 130 L.Ed.2d 1095 (1995). In exercising its peremptory strikes, the Commonwealth removed four black members of the venire. When challenged as to the reasons for three of the four strikes, the Commonwealth gave the following explanations: one prospective juror had fairly recent DUI and CCW convictions, another's son had been convicted of firearm possession and for selling drugs, and the third was a social services employee. One of the prosecutors with experience with social services employees found them to be fairly liberal and without exception possessed of a belief that treatment rather than punishment was a more appropriate way of dealing with juvenile offenders. Jackson, who is black, does not attack the racial neutrality of these statements; instead he claims that they were pretextual explanations designed to mask racially discriminatory reasons for the peremptory strikes. Concluding that Jackson has failed to carry his burden of showing that the court abused its discretion in accepting those explanations, we find no merit in this contention. See James v. Commonwealth, 247 Va. 459, 461-62, 442 S.E.2d 396, 398 (1994).