Court Opinion

ID: 9758896
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 23:55:07.679356+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:01:29.589665
License: Public Domain

SCHWELB, Associate Judge,
concurring:
I agree that we cannot sustain the trial judge’s disposition of the defendants’ Batson1 claim. I write separately, however, because my reasons differ, at least in emphasis, from those articulated by Judge Ruiz.2
I.
STATISTICS
A. General observations.
Judge Ruiz states that the trial judge erred in “entirely” discounting the statistical evidence. I would go further. This record reveals a high statistical probability that the plaintiff struck one or more potential jurors on account of race. In my opinion, the trial judge’s failure to include the statistical evidence in his calculus undermined his Batson analysis.
The trial judge recognized that a prima facie case can be made under Batson by proving a “disparate impact or result due to numbers,” but he “[did] not think that the numbers here permit that because they are so small.” The judge acknowledged that the jury, as finally constituted, was all-black. He stated, however, that “the venire itself was 95% black to begin with, [s]o it’s not surprising that you have [only] African American jurors.”3 The judge apparently found it irrelevant that even though non-black jurors represented only a small percentage of the venire, all of Ms. Baucom’s strikes were directed at non-blacks, and no non-black juror was left in the box when plaintiffs counsel had completed his work.
B. The parties ’ peí ‘emptory challenges.
After the judge had ruled on the parties’ challenges for cause, he placed eight jurors in the jury box, and counsel were directed to exercise their peremptory challenges. Each side had three strikes. In order to enable the reader to understand exactly how these strikes were used, I attempt to reproduce below the situation at each stage of the process.
The following table reflects the number and race of each person in the jury box before the first round of challenges:

Seat Juror Number Race

8 800 B4
[[Image here]]
*769At the beginning of the proceedings, there were thus five black jurors and three non-blacks seated in the box.
In the first round of strikes, plaintiff peremptorily challenged Juror No. 61 (white) in Seat 1. The defense struck Juror No. 747 (black) in Seat 7. The two jurors who were struck were replaced respectively by Juror No. 820 (black) in Seat 1 and Juror No. 836 (black) in Seat 7. As a result, there were now six blacks and two non-blacks in the jury box:
[[Image here]]
In the second round, the plaintiff peremptorily challenged Juror -No. 494 (white) in Seat 2. The defense challenged Juror No. 820 (black) in Seat 1. This left only one non-black juror in the box:
[[Image here]]
In the third and final round, the plaintiff struck Juror No. 800 (Hispanic) in Seat 8. The defense challenged Juror No. 735 in Seat 6. Both of these individuals were replaced by black jurors, No. 894 in Seat 6 and No. 20 in Seat 8. The composition of the jury box was now as follows:
[[Image here]]
The aggregate strikes can best be ing combination of effect of the plaintiffs discerned from the follow-the four previous tables:
[[Image here]]
The changes in the composition of the jury, round by round, reveal graphically exactly what occurred. In successive rounds, counsel for plaintiff moved from Seat 1 to Seat 2 to Seat 8, striking from the jury each non-black individual in the box. When he had finished, all eight jurors who remained were black.
C. Probability.
From a statistical perspective, the possibility is remote that the selection of this unira-eial jury happened by chance.
When Ms. Baucom’s counsel exercised his first strike, there were five black jurors and three non-black jurors seated in the box. If the first peremptory challenge had been exercised at random — if, by analogy, five black balls and three white balls had been placed in a bag, and if a single ball had been extracted “blind” — then there would have been a 3/8 chance that the person struck (or the ball extracted) would be non-black. Obviously, no inference of discrimination could reasonably be drawn solely from the fact that the first juror struck by the plaintiff was white.
During the second round, there were two non-blacks and six blacks in the box. Ms. Baucom’s attorney again challenged a non-black juror. If race had not been a factor— if, e.g., there had been a blind drawing — then the probability that a non-black juror would be struck was one in four. If the strikes both in the first round and in the second round had been conducted at random, however — if each round had consisted of pulling balls from a bag — then the probability that a *770non-black juror would be peremptorily challenged in both rounds was 3/8 x 1/4, or 3/32; i.e., less than one in ten. See Richard A. Wehmhoefer, Statistics in Litigation § 3.05, at 41 (1985).
In the third round, Juror No. 800 (Hispanic) was the only non-black juror remaining in the box, and Ms. Baucom’s attorney exercised his remaining peremptory challenge to strike her. The chance that Juror No. 800 would be struck at random, if race was not a factor, was one in eight. The probability that a non-black juror would be struck in each of the three rounds, however, was 3/32 x 1/8, or 3/256. Id. Accordingly, if race had been eliminated as a factor — if there had been three “blind” drawings from a bag— there would have been less than a 1/85 chance that all of the plaintiffs strikes would be directed at non-black jurors. “Coincidences happen, but an alternative explanation not predicated on happenstance is often the one that has the ring of truth.” Tursio v. United States, 634 A.2d 1205, 1213 (D.C.1993) (quoting Poulnot v. District of Columbia, 608 A.2d 134, 139 (D.C.1992)).5
D. Legal analysis.
“In the problem of racial discrimination, statistics often tell much, and courts listen.” Tursio, supra, 634 A.2d at 1213 (quoting Harris v. District of Columbia Comm’n on Human Rights, 562 A.2d 625, 632 (D.C.1989)). “Nothing is as emphatic as zero.” Tursio, 634 A.2d at 1210 (quoting United States v. Hinds County School Bd., 417 F.2d 852, 858 (5th Cir.1969) (per curiam), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 1032, 90 S.Ct. 612, 24 L.Ed.2d 531 (1970)). Moreover, there is “no acceptable place in the law for partial racial discrimination,” Tursio, 634 A.2d at 1213 n. 7 (quoting Smith v. Sol D. Adler Realty Co., 436 F.2d 344, 350 (7th Cir.1970)), and a peremptory challenge may not be based in part on the juror’s race, even if counsel was motivated in part by some legitimate nondiscriminatory factor. Here, all of the plaintiffs strikes were of non-blacks, and the number of non-blacks left on the jury was zero. To believe that the race of the jurors played no role whatever in jury selection in this case is to attribute to coincidence that for which there is a far more plausible explanation. See Nelson v. United States, 649 A.2d 301, 312-13 (D.C.1994) (concurring opinion).
I do not suggest that statistical improbability cannot be rebutted. Statistics such as those here presented, however, are something that the trier of fact is obligated to take into account. Tursio, supra, 634 A.2d at 1213. Common sense tells us why. If a witness were to testify that when he went to a local supermarket, all thirty of the customers in the store were more than seven feet tall, then most rational people would react to his tale with a measure of skepticism. His account could be true — there are doubtless more than thirty people in Washington, D.C. who could call Wilt Chamberlain “Shorty”— but the improbability that everyone in the store was as tall as that is obviously relevant to the credibility of the narrator and of the narrative. To ignore this is to ignore reality.
The present case likewise required the trier of fact to adopt a “show me” attitude with respect to the explanations provided by counsel for plaintiff. The judge was confronted with a series of events which pointed strongly to the probability that race was a significant factor in what had occurred. The judge saw it all happen; the plaintiff removed one non-black juror after the next from the jury box, until all three were gone. When Ms. Baucom’s attorney assured the judge that his strikes were not based on race, then an effective assessment of the credibility of that assurance surely required the judge to in-*771elude in his calculus the obvious fact that, if what counsel was saying was true, then a remarkable and statistically improbable coincidence had occurred.
II.
THE RACIALLY NEUTRAL JUSTIFICATIONS
The statistical evidence which I have described above is persuasive and, in my view, sufficient to establish a prima facie case. See Tursio, supra, 634 A.2d at 1210-11; cf. United States v. Alvarado, 923 F.2d 253, 256 (2d Cir.1991) (“a challenge rate nearly twice the likely minority percentage of the venire strongly supports a prima facie ease under Batson"). The statistics are not conclusive, however. Once a prima facie case has been established, the burden shifts to the opposing party to provide a racially neutral explanation for the strikes. Batson, supra, 476 U.S. at 96, 106 S.Ct. at 1722-23; Nelson, supra, 649 A.2d at 310. The next question to be addressed is whether Ms. Baucom effectively provided a sufficient nondiscriminatory explanation.
Like Judge Ruiz, I focus in this connection on the issues relating to Juror No. 61.6 The defense case was directed primarily to the plaintiffs strike of this juror, and the relief requested in the trial court was that Juror No. 61 be seated. If the defendants cannot prove that discrimination occurred with respect to the peremptory challenge of this juror, it is unlikely that they can prevail at all.
Plaintiffs counsel told the court that he did not strike Juror No. 61 because of her race, but because
looking at her, she is young number 1 and I don’t believe from the Plaintiffs perspective, I don’t believe that she would be able to relate to the ability of a 75-year-old lady to ambulate after having suffered a stroke.
Number 2, the employment is the Greenpeace Development and I looked at the employment as Greenpeace as being something of a liberal nature and I am not interested in having somebody that works for Greenpeace on this jury.
Each of the justifications provided by counsel is sufficient to meet the requirements of Step 2 of Batson. Age is racially neutral, and we have held that a party is not constitutionally precluded from basing a peremptory strike on a juror’s age. Baxter v. United States, 640 A.2d 714, 718 n. 5 (D.C.1994). Although the “Greenpeace liberal” justification is a little more dubious, “the second step of [the Batson ] process does not demand an explanation that is persuasive or even plausible.” Purkett v. Elem, 514 U.S. 765, 768, 115 S.Ct. 1769, 1771, 131 L.Ed.2d 834 (1995) (per curiam) (emphasis added). Indeed, “a legitimate reason is not a reason that makes sense, but a reason that does not deny equal protection.” Id. The plaintiff having presented ostensibly nondiscriminatory justifications for her strikes, the burden was on the defendants to establish that these justifications were pretextual and that Ms. Baucom’s counsel purposely exercised his peremptory challenges in a racially discriminatory manner.
III.
PRETEXTUALITY
To determine whether the defendants demonstrated pretextuality, we must first consider the trial judge’s findings. After sustaining as nondiscriminatory the plaintiffs challenges to Juror No. 494 and to Juror No. 800, the judge expressed reservations regarding counsel’s stated reasons for striking Juror No. 61, but he ultimately found no discrimination:
Now with respect to 061, I don’t think that I find Mr. Costello’s7 explanation completely or immediately persuasive.
Her identification, her occupational identification and I don’t understand how someone employed at GreenPeace, and let’s assume that they are described as being liberal or they are liberal as the *772term is used here, but I don’t know how exactly that according to his calculations and I suppose that it’s possible that he would — that he has a view that someone associated with that organization might have some view about nature taking its course and the survival of the fittest or that it’s wrong to lavish too many resources on old people or in keeping them in good shape or whatever and that may be his reason behind it.
But, putting that to one side, it seems to me that the explanation about her age that Counsel is willing to strike her if he finds that he would like to have the jury persuaded as much as possible toward the older set rather than the younger set.
Counsel, I find that strike to be understandable.
The judge’s assessment is not to be lightly set aside. “We accord the trial court’s findings on the issue of discriminatory intent deference, since they turn in large measure on an evaluation of credibility.” Nelson, supra, 649 A.2d at 312. But exculpatory prevarication is an integral part of the discriminator’s modus operandi and trial judges should be careful not to ignore the size of Pinocehio’s nose. Especially where, as here, the right to equal opportunity is at issue, an appellate court cannot simply rubber stamp the judge’s findings. If those findings have been induced by a misapprehension of controlling substantive legal principles, then they lose the insulation of the “clearly erroneous” rule set forth in Super.Ct.Civ.R. 52(a). See, e.g., Murphy v. McCloud, 650 A.2d 202, 210 (D.C.1994).
With these principles in mind, I address the explanation provided by plaintiffs counsel for striking Juror No. 61. The first justification — that, at the age of 26, this juror was too young — was not invoked against a similarly situated black woman, albeit in a later round. As Judge Ruiz points out, Ms. Baucom’s attorney subsequently passed up the opportunity to strike Juror No. 862, who was also 26 years old, female, and black. Although counsel claimed at trial that he had no more strikes left by the time Juror No. 862 was seated, this contention is incorrect. Juror No. 862 was placed in the box after the second round of strikes, and was a potential strike during the third round.8 See pp. 768, 769, supra. Obviously, age was not a factor of decisive importance to plaintiffs counsel.
Counsel’s other stated reason for striking Juror No. 61 was her employment with Greenpeace and her perceived liberal tendencies. The attorney for the hospital responded to this justification by remarking that this was “the first time I ever heard a plaintiffs attorney indicate that a liberal individual is someone that a plaintiff would not have seated on the case.” It is difficult to disagree with counsel’s point. Indeed, the trial judge, as we have seen, expressed his own skepticism about this rather unusual justification provided by an attorney for the plaintiff in a medical malpractice action.
In sum, we have before us a situation in which all of the plaintiffs strikes were directed at non-blacks, who represented a small minority of the jurors seated in the box. The resulting jury was all black. The odds against this occurring by chance are steep, and the judge was therefore obliged to scrutinize critically counsel’s stated explanations. If the judge had done so, and if he had not excluded meaningful and highly probative statistics from his calculus, he might well have reached a different result.
In Purkett, the Supreme Court recognized that during the Batson step 3 pretextuality inquiry “implausible or fantastic justifications may (and probably will) be found to be pretexts for purposeful discrimination.” 514 U.S. at 767-69, 115 S.Ct. at 1771. That may well be what we have here. Nothing is as emphatic as zero. Zero blacks were challenged by plaintiff. Zero was the number of non-blacks left on the jury. The statistics here are thus especially emphatic, and courts are supposed to listen. Tursio, supra, 634 A.2d at 1210. Considering the plural zeros together with the unpersuasiveness of the “Greenpeace liberal” explanation, I apprehend that the trial judge’s finding that there *773was no Batson violation was induced by the application of an incorrect legal standard, see Mu?phy, supra, 650 A.2d at 210, in that the judge erroneously excluded from his calculus some relevant and persuasive evidence. A remand for new findings is therefore required. If the judge is still able to make these findings after the passage of so much time, then he should do so; if not, then he should order a new trial.
IV.
“PROBING” AND PLAIN ERROR
Counsel for Dr. Trowell’s estate contends that the trial judge erred by failing to interrogate Ms. Baucom’s attorney and to demand further explanation of his strikes. An examination of the record persuades me that any such point was waived.
At the conclusion of the Batson hearing in this case, the trial judge indicated that the defense had not proved discrimination in the plaintiffs exercise of her peremptory challenges. The following colloquy ensued:
THE COURT: Well, if there is nothing else....
COUNSEL FOR THE HOSPITAL: Nothing else.
COUNSEL FOR DR. TROWELL’S ESTATE: Nothing further.
Neither at this point nor at any earlier time during the hearing did either defense attorney ask the judge to propound questions to Ms. Baucom’s counsel or to “probe” counsel’s explanations in any other way. To paraphrase Hunter v. United States, 606 A.2d 139, 144 (D.C.1992), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 991, 113 S.Ct. 509, 121 L.Ed.2d 444 (1993): Litigants should not be permitted to keep some of their [demands] in their hip pockets and to disclose them only to the appellate tribunal; “[o]ne cannot take his chance on a favorable verdict, reserving a right to impeach it if it happens to go the other way.” Palmer Constr. Co. v. Patouillet, 42 A.2d 273, 274 (D.C. [Mun.App.] 1945); see also Hopkins v. United States, 595 A.2d 995, 996 n. 3 (D.C.1991) (quoting Patouillet ).
Litigants should not be permitted to keep some of their [demands] in their hip pockets and to disclose them only to the appellate tribunal; “[o]ne cannot take his chance on a favorable verdict, reserving a right to impeach it if it happens to go the other way.” Palmer Constr. Co. v. Patouillet, 42 A.2d 273, 274 (D.C. [Mun.App.] 1945); see also Hopkins v. United States, 595 A.2d 995, 996 n. 3 (D.C.1991) (quoting Patouil-let ).
We recently held in In re A.R., 679 A.2d 470 (D.C.1996), an appeal from an order terminating parental rights, that the appellant father could not be heard to complain in this court that the judge had failed to call or to interrogate certain witnesses, where the father had not requested the judge at trial to call or interrogate them. Id. at 477-78 & n. 11. The present case is identical in principle to In re A R.
Counsel for Dr. Trowell’s estate cites Tur-sio, supra, for the proposition that the judge erred in this case by not “probing” further. We stated in Tursio that
[ajppellant’s prima facie showing of discrimination here was so compelling that the trial court should have probed the prosecutor in detail about his different treatment of similarly situated jurors.
634 A.2d at 1213. We so concluded, in part, “because the trial court, despite a strong, clear, and timely defense request, did not conduct a sufficient inquiry_” Id. (Emphasis added.) As a member of the division which decided Tursio, I certainly did not intend either to fashion or to countenance a departure from one of the most fundamental principles of the appellate process:
In our jurisprudential system, trial and appellate processes are synchronized in contemplation that review will normally be confined to matters appropriately submitted for determination in the court of first resort. Questions not properly raised and preserved during the proceedings under examination, and points not asserted with sufficient precision to indicate distinctly the party’s thesis, will normally be spurned on appeal.
Miller v. Avirom, 127 U.S.App.D.C. 367, 369, 384 F.2d 319, 321 (1967); see also D.D. v. M.T., 550 A.2d 37, 48 (D.C.1988) (quoting Miller).
Counsel for the defendants had ample opportunity in this case to ask the judge to pose additional questions to Ms. Baucom’s attorney. Having failed to avail themselves of that opportunity, they cannot now be heard to complain that the trial judge’s interrogation was insufficient or deficient.
*774V.
CONCLUSION
We are presented here with an unfortunate situation. The plaintiff presented substantial evidence of negligent conduct on the part of the defendants. The case may now have to be retried. Retrials are expensive and burdensome, to the parties and to the judicial system. This litigation did not present a racial controversy, and it may well be that the plaintiffs Batson violation did not affect the substantive result at all.
Those of us who sat on the trial court before Batson and its progeny9 observed, in all too many cases, the striking by counsel of jurors of a particular race, one by one, until the jury consisted entirely or almost entirely of persons of one race. Batson was supposed to proscribe this kind of discriminatory practice, but the bad old ways die hard. See, e.g., Tursio and Nelson.10 The time has now come to put an end to this unwanted vestige of an era that should have been consigned to oblivion long ago.11 Where, as here, a step-by-step racial purge of the jury-box was effected, judges should take explanations like “Greenpeace liberal” with more than a single grain of salt.

. Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986).

. I agree with Judge Ruiz’ disposition, in Part III of her opinion, of the evidentiary issues raised by the appellants.

. Actually, of the fourteen jurors who reached the jury box during the selection process, eleven (78%) were black and three (22%) were non-black.

.Juror No. 800 was of Hispanic origin. Counsel for the hospital claimed that she was also white. Because the alleged discrimination in the present case was between blacks and non-blacks, and because Juror No. 800 was not black, it makes no difference whether or not Juror No. 800 was technically white.

. Chief Judge Wagner points out that "individuals, unlike marbles, which differ only in size and color, possess unique attributes and experiences which may bear upon their, ability to render a fair and impartial verdict in certain cases.” I certainly agree; jurors, like people in all walks of life, should be selected on the basis of individual qualifications, and not in order to satisfy some preordained racial grid. But where, as here, choices ostensibly made on the basis of legitimate and nondiscriminatory factors turn out in practice to disqualify, exclusively or almost exclusively, members of one race, and where the result is a work force, or a tenant population, or, as here, a jury, which is composed exclusively of members of a different race, we would surely be foolhardy to ascribe it all to coincidence without first adopting an attitude of open-minded skepticism and then taking a good hard look.

. Absent the statistical pattern, I would find quite unpersuasive the evidence that the other two non-black jurors were struck because of race.

. John F.Y. Costello, Esq. represented Ms. Bau-com both at trial and on appeal.

. As Chief Judge Wagner correctly points out, however, some of the jurors who were ih the box in the third round had not yet been seated during the first round.

. The Supreme Court held in Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U.S. 614, 618-28, 111 S.Ct. 2077, 2081-87, 114 L.Ed.2d 660 (1991), that the Constitution proscribes racially based peremptory strikes in civil cases as well as in criminal prosecutions. See also Georgia v. McCollum, 505 U.S. 42, 48-55, 112 S.Ct. 2348, 2353-57, 120 L.Ed.2d 33 (1992), applying Batson to peremptory challenges by the defense in criminal cases.

. In Nelson, for all practical purposes, the prosecution struck only men and the defense challenged only women.

. At least one trial court judge makes a constructive attempt to inhibit Batson violations by advising the members of the venire, as a part of the explanation of the peremptory challenge process, that counsel are permitted to strike prospective jurors for any reason, except that discrimination based, e.g., on race or sex is prohibited.