Opinion ID: 2571564
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Use of peremptories against Hispanics

Text: There were eight Hispanics in the juror pool. The prosecution struck three Hispanic women, Gavina D., Carla G., and Nellie D. The defense struck four Hispanic men. One Hispanic man served on the final jury. Nichols made a Batson/Wheeler motion, objecting to the use of strikes against Hispanics, and Bonilla joined the motion. The trial court denied it, concluding: On this record, I make a finding there was no attempt to discriminate or excuse Hispanics from this jury. Bonilla resumes this argument on appeal, contending that statistical evidenceโthe prosecution's exclusion of all three Hispanic womenโalone establishes a prima facie case. We disagree. Preliminarily, the statistical frequency with which the prosecution struck Hispanics from the juror pool provides no basis at all to infer discrimination. Hispanics comprised approximately 10 percent of the pool (eight of 78), the prosecution used 10 percent of its challenges on Hispanics (three of 30), and the final jury was roughly 10 percent Hispanic (one of 12). Bonilla of course is a Hispanic male, but the prosecution used not a single strike against any Hispanic male, and a Hispanic man sat on the jury. Perhaps because of this, Bonilla at various points frames his objection as one against the exclusion of Hispanic women. Whether or not Hispanic women constitute a separate cognizable group for Wheeler/Batson purposes, distinct from both women generally and Hispanics generally, [14] on these facts this shifting approach smacks of data dredging. That is, given numerous (increasingly small) subcategories and cross-categories of individuals, one is increasingly likely to find, somewhere, a particular category for which one side or the other happens to have stricken most or all of the (few) members of the groupโnot for reasons of discrimination, but as a simple consequence of the laws of probability. In such circumstances, the force of any corresponding inference of discrimination will necessarily be weakened. Moreover, while it so happens the prosecution's use of peremptories resulted in the exclusion of all three Hispanic women, defining the relevant category in this way means Bonilla is no longer a member of the relevant group and no longer benefits from whatever force his group membership would otherwise have had in supporting an inference of discrimination. The record further indicates that for one of the three Hispanic women, Nellie D., the prosecutor did not realize she was Hispanic. Where a prosecutor is unaware of a prospective juror's group status, it logically follows he cannot have discriminated on the basis of that status. (See People v. Barber (1988) 200 Cal.App.3d 378, 389, 394, 245 Cal.Rptr. 895.) Bonilla offers no reason, beyond the ratio of Hispanics struck to those in the juror pool, to conclude the prosecutor discriminated against Hispanics or Hispanic women in his use of peremptories, and the record amply supports the trial court's conclusion that he failed to make out a prima facie case of group bias against Hispanics.