Opinion ID: 6337736
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: We deny Hernandez-Garcia’s Batson challenge

Text: because he has failed to show that the prosecution purposefully discriminated against Asian jurors. Batson v. Kentucky established a three-step burdenshifting framework for evaluating a defendant’s claim that the prosecution exercised peremptory strikes in a racially discriminatory manner. See Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. 352, 358–59 (1991). The defendant must first make a prima facie showing that the prosecution exercised its strikes based on race. Id. at 358. Then, the burden shifts to the prosecution to provide a “race-neutral explanation for striking the jurors in question.” Id. at 359. If the prosecution provides race-neutral reasons, the district court must determine based on the record whether the “defendant has carried his burden in proving purposeful discrimination.” Id. Because the prosecution offered race-neutral reasons for striking Ms. Del Rosario and Mr. Sanqui, the only remaining inquiry is whether the district court erred at step three. See Mikhel, 889 F.3d at 1029. While we normally review a district court’s step three finding for clear error, we have sometimes applied de novo review when the district court’s analysis was deficient, either because the court did not engage in a meaningful analysis or failed altogether to conduct a step three Batson assessment. See, e.g., Alvarez- 5 Because we hold that the 2016 NDAA authorized the Marines’ surveillance, we do not address the government’s argument that it amounted to only indirect assistance not subject to the Posse Comitatus Act. 16 UNITED STATES V. HERNANDEZ-GARCIA Ulloa, 784 F.3d at 565 (failing to reach step three); United States v. Alanis, 335 F.3d 965, 968–69 (9th Cir. 2003) (failing to conduct meaningful analysis at step three). Hernandez-Garcia insists that the district court’s analysis was flawed and urges us to conduct our own de novo review at step three. First, Hernandez-Garcia argues that the district court failed to conduct a step three analysis because, after listening to the prosecution’s race-neutral reasons, the district court twice stated that there is not “a prima facie case,” seemingly making a step one finding. Even if the district court reached step three, its analysis was not meaningful, according to Hernandez-Garcia, because the district court misstated the prosecution’s proffered reasons for striking Ms. Del Rosario and Mr. Sanqui. 6 We acknowledge that the district court’s oral Batson ruling is not a paragon of clarity. But when reviewing a district court’s oral pronouncements in court, we must be careful “not to formally parse the sentences contained in a transcript of an oral ruling or to demand absolute linguistic precision from the trial judge.” See United States v. Coutchavlis, 260 F.3d 1149, 1156 (9th Cir. 2001). And even indulging Hernandez-Garcia’s request that we apply de novo review, we conclude that Hernandez-Garcia did not prove 6 Hernandez-Garcia also contends that the district court’s step three analysis was flawed because the court refused to conduct a “comparative juror analysis.” But comparative juror analysis “is one of many tools that a court may employ” at step three, and “[t]rial courts . . . are not required to conduct such an analysis.” United States v. You, 382 F.3d 958, 969 (9th Cir. 2004). UNITED STATES V. HERNANDEZ-GARCIA 17 that the prosecution purposefully discriminated against Asian jurors. 7 The “ultimate burden of persuasion regarding racial motivation rests with, and never shifts from, the opponent of the strike.” Purkett v. Elem, 514 U.S. 765, 768 (1995). The “critical question” in determining whether HernandezGarcia has proven “purposeful discrimination at step three is the persuasiveness of the prosecutor’s justification for his peremptory strike.” Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 338–39 (2003). At step three, “implausible or fantastic justifications may (and probably will) be found to be pretexts for purposeful discrimination.” Id. at 339 (quoting Purkett, 514 U.S. at 768). But a “legitimate reason” is not necessarily a “reason that makes sense,” but is instead “a reason that does not deny equal protection.” Purkett, 514 U.S. at 768– 69. 8 Ultimately, we must determine whether the “stated reasons were the prosecutor’s genuine reasons for exercising a peremptory strike.” Green v. LaMarque, 532 F.3d 1028, 1030 (9th Cir. 2008). The prosecution struck Ms. Del Rosario because she served on a hung jury and works as a research scientist. Ms. Del Rosario’s prior service on a hung jury was a 7 We do not hold that the district court’s analysis was erroneous such that de novo review is required. Rather, we assume without deciding that the district court erred because Hernandez-Garcia’s Batson claim still fails under de novo review. 8 There is no requirement, as Hernandez-Garcia urges, that the prosecution’s reasons be directly relevant to the crime charged. Purkett clarifies that Batson’s warning that the prosecution’s reasons must be “related to a particular case to be tried” was “meant to refute the notion that a prosecutor could satisfy his burden of production by merely denying that he had a discriminatory motive.” See id. 18 UNITED STATES V. HERNANDEZ-GARCIA legitimate reason. See United States v. Rudas, 905 F.2d 38, 41 (2d Cir. 1990). And it was permissible to strike Ms. Del Rosario based on her occupation because the prosecution stated “a genuine, race-neutral reason for believing that the occupation would make the juror unfavorable.” Jamerson v. Runnels, 713 F.3d 1218, 1235 (9th Cir. 2013). During voir dire, the prosecution expressed concern that jurors with engineering backgrounds, who are used to dealing with “hard numbers, objective facts,” would be skeptical of the government’s case built on circumstantial evidence. It was reasonable for the prosecution to be concerned that Ms. Del Rosario, a research scientist, also possessed this same distrust of circumstantial evidence. Still, Hernandez-Garcia maintains that the reasons were pretextual because the prosecution failed to strike four white jurors who had also allegedly served on hung juries. But if the prosecution cites multiple reasons for striking a juror and “no unchallenged juror possesse[s] all the cited characteristics,” then the record does not support a finding of purposeful discrimination. See United States v. Lewis, 837 F.2d 415, 417 n.5 (9th Cir. 1988). Here, none of the white jurors were researchers or worked in a related field. (Mr. Avecilla: “I am a default assistant at [a] law firm.”); (Mr. Hogan: “I am retired.”); (Mr. Westfall: “I am a retired CPA and finance manager.”); (Mr. Brownlow: “I am a construction consultant, a former teacher.”). We thus conclude that Hernandez-Garcia did not show that the prosecution purposefully discriminated against Ms. Del Rosario. We also hold that Hernandez-Garcia failed to prove that the prosecution struck Mr. Sanqui for racially discriminatory reasons. The prosecution struck Mr. Sanqui because “he appeared to be a loner” as the “only thing he said during [voir UNITED STATES V. HERNANDEZ-GARCIA 19 dire] was ‘I am a software developer, no spouse, no kids.’” 9 Mr. Sanqui also “came dressed in a hoodie,” which the prosecution “perceived to be underdressed.” Striking a perceived “loner” is permissible because “a loner may hamper the jury’s ability to reach a unanimous verdict.” United States v. Daly, 974 F.2d 1215, 1219 (9th Cir. 1992). And the prosecution may legitimately strike a juror based on his casual dress because it conveys a possible lack of enthusiasm for jury service. See United States v. Thompson, 827 F.2d 1254, 1260 (9th Cir. 1987). We recognize that these reasons are subjective and largely based on a prosecutor’s “instinct about a prospective juror.” Id. But reliance on instinct is permissible and “wholly within the prosecutor’s prerogative.” Id. Hernandez-Garcia quarrels with the prosecution’s assumption that Mr. Sanqui’s brief response suggests he is a loner. According to Hernandez-Garcia, Mr. Sanqui’s 58word response was longer than at least six non-Asian jurors whom the prosecution did not strike, so the loner explanation must be pretextual. We disagree. The prosecution’s conclusion about a juror’s demeanor is often based on a “hunch.” See Burks v. Borg, 27 F.3d 1424, 1429 n.3 (9th 9 Hernandez-Garcia interprets the prosecution’s reference to Mr. Sanqui’s profession as an independent reason for its challenge and urges us to conduct a comparative juror analysis with respect to other jurors sharing the same occupation. But the prosecution did not strike Mr. Sanqui because of his profession. Rather, it struck Mr. Sanqui because of his brief response, and in explaining its thinking to the court, the prosecution incidentally repeated Mr. Sanqui’s reference to his profession. Thus, we decline to conduct a comparative juror analysis as to occupation. 20 UNITED STATES V. HERNANDEZ-GARCIA Cir. 1994). The veracity of such an inherently subjective perception cannot be doubted based solely on a word count. Lastly, Hernandez-Garcia argues that our decision in Ali v. Hickman, 584 F.3d 1174 (9th Cir. 2009), prohibits reliance on Mr. Sanqui’s casual dress. In Ali, we considered “casualness” an “exceedingly weak” justification because it was contradicted by the prosecution’s other reason that the juror “would ‘over-intellectualize’ the decisionmaking process.” Id. at 1195. But here, there is no conflict between the prosecution’s loner and casualness rationales. If anything, the two reasons reinforce one another because they both suggest that Mr. Sanqui has low enthusiasm for jury service and may hinder a unanimous verdict. And Hernandez-Garcia has failed to identify a single similarly dressed non-Asian juror who went unchallenged. See Thompson, 827 F.2d at 1260 (Casual dress is a “legitimate reason, unless a nonexcluded juror also wore jeans or other casual dress.”).