Opinion ID: 557681
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Jury Selection Based on Race

Text: 5 In Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), the Supreme Court held that the calculated challenge of jurors of the same race as the defendant constitutes a violation of the constitutional right to equal protection. The Court stated that in order to make out a prima facie case, the defendant must show (1) membership in a cognizable racial group, (2) against which the prosecution exercises challenges, (3) under circumstances raising an inference of discriminatory intent. Id. at 96. 6 In the present case a single challenge, to the only member of the venire panel of the same race as the defendant, is assigned as violative of equal protection. At the time defendant's objection to the peremptory challenge at issue was entered, the prosecution made the following record of its reasons for making the challenge: 7 [T]his juror is 29 years old, the other two jurors that I have excused were under 30 years of age. I'm sure that that pattern will develop as the voir dire goes on. 8 Furthermore, she is not married, has two children, one eleven months old and one which was just born. She ... has never been employed, therefore, has in my view the Government's view, has little stake in the community. She rents her house. She--each of these in and of themselves I agree may be insufficient factors, however, an individual who is under the age of 30 years old, has never been employed seems to the Government--well, the Government does not believe she is an appropriate and efficient for this jury. 9 The essence of the defendant's argument is that these criteria, if used across the board, would have a disparate impact upon members of the defendant's race, and therefore the articulated rationales were not racially neutral, but were discriminatory. We do not agree that all of the factors articulated by the prosecution would have such an effect, and moreover, defendant has no made a proper record upon which to draw such a conclusion. 10 We agree with the defendant that it is not essential that more than one challenge be exercised in order to infer discriminatory intent, but the circumstances here do not lead to such an inference. Defendant relies upon the observation of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that a prosecutor's disparate treatment of veniremen who were similar in relevant aspects except race may, in the absence of other neutral selection criteria, be a violation of the equal protection clause, United States v. Horsley, 864 F.2d 1543, 1546 (11th Cir.1989), without suggesting that the government in fact did not apply the articulated rationale to this panel in a race-neutral manner. Whether such a rationale might produce a racially discriminatory impact under other circumstances is not the question. There is no record made in this case to support the claim. 11 United States v. McCoy, 848 F.2d 743 (6th Cir.1988), is more on point. There, a peremptory challenge based upon the prospective juror's unemployment was upheld. The court there, as we must here, looked to the circumstances of the jury selection which in fact occurred. The record in McCoy showed that a venireperson of a different race had been excluded for the same reason, and furthermore, that two persons of the same race as the defendant served on the jury which convicted him. 12 Here, no jurors were selected who were of the same race as the defendant. However, the record indicates that the prosecution applied its criteria in a race-neutral fashion by challenging other venirepersons, not of the same race as Pressley, on identical grounds. Under these circumstances, we find no violation of Pressley's constitutional rights occurred. 13