Court Opinion

ID: 9572517
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:42:24.861347+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:33:19.942510
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE, Chief Justice,
concurring specially.
I agree with Justice Levine that we should not condone gender discrimination in jury selection or elsewhere. Having said that, I am not convinced that the combination of factors in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), set forth as raising the necessary inference of purposeful discrimination, thereby establishing a prima facie case of purposeful discrimination in selection of the jury solely on evidence concerning the use of peremptory challenges, is the same for gender discrimination as it is in cases where peremptory challenges are exercised to remove from the panel members of a certain race. Every peremptory strike will necessarily involve a woman or a man. Not every peremptory strike will involve a person of a different race. I am not convinced, nor do I understand Justice Levine’s opinion to necessarily hold, that the peremptory strike of one more man than woman or one more woman than man— both, I concede, members of cognizable groups subject to gender discrimination— requires, without more, any explanation from the other party. Thus the same factors which Batson teaches are sufficient to raise the necessary inference of purposeful racial discrimination may not be sufficient to raise an inference of gender discrimination.
The Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202, 85 S.Ct. 824, 13 L.Ed.2d 759 (1965) procedure, although discarded in cases of race discrimination by Batson, may nevertheless have some application in cases of gender discrimination because of the inescapable fact that every peremptory exercised will be against a member of a cognizable group, i.e., women or men. If, in this case, the defense can show that the prosecution in case after case of a charge of driving while under the influence, removes men from the jury by peremptory strike, in a purposeful pattern, the burden should shift to the prosecution to articulate a gender-neutral explanation for the challenges related to the particular ease to be tried. There may be other procedures which would accomplish the purpose of protecting against gender discrimination in the selection of a jury panel and preserving the system of peremptory strikes without applying in to to the Batson inferences which were designed to apply to race discrimination. I have no hesitation in concluding that gender discrimination in jury selection violates constitutional principles. I am not convinced that the Batson procedure is the only or the appropriate procedure to be applied to remedy that discrimination.
I am not sure what the appropriate procedure is. However, I join in remanding for a hearing on the question of whether Fern has made a prima facie showing of gender discrimination and, if so, to permit the prosecution to give, if the prosecution can, a gender-neutral' explanation for the peremptory strikes exercised in this case.
SANDSTROM and NEUMANN, JJ., concur.