Court Opinion

ID: 9664583
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:21:52.973339+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:07.412032
License: Public Domain

BENTON, Judge,
concurring.
I concur fully but write separately to express concern about the continuing validity of peremptory challenges. § 494.480 RSMo Supp.1989.
The principal opinion comprehensively chronicles the expansion of Batson. On its facts, Batson only covered an African-American defendant and African-American venirepersons struck by the prosecution in criminal cases. 476 U.S. at 82-84, 106 S.Ct. at 1714-1716. By emphasizing the right of venirepersons to equal protection, subsequent cases now control peremptory challenges by both parties — regardless of race — in both criminal and civil cases. Georgia v. McCollum, — U.S. -, 112 S.Ct. 2348, 120 L.Ed.2d 33 (1992); Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., — U.S. -, 111 S.Ct. 2077, 114 L.Ed.2d 660 (1991); Powers v. Ohio, — U.S. -, -, 111 S.Ct. 1364, 1373, 113 L.Ed.2d 411 (1991). Thus is “the tendency of a principle to expand itself to the limit of its logic. . . .” Benjamin N. Cardozo, Nature of the Judicial Process 51 (1921).
Based on these decisions, and their equal protection rationale, Batson may well expand further. Concurring in McCollum, Justice Clarence Thomas notes recent decisions addressing exclusions of white venire-persons and on the basis of gender. McCollum, — U.S. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 2360 (Thomas, J., concurring). The United States Supreme Court could hear a case on gender discrimination in its next term. See United States v. De Gross, 960 F.2d 1433 (9th Cir. banc 1992). The Court of Appeals, Eastern District, has transferred to this Court a case on gender discrimination. State v. Pullen, No. 56820, 1992 WL 121791 (Mo.App. June 9, 1992).
Pullen poses the question whether the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution (or its Missouri equivalent) prohibits discrimination against women in the use of peremptory challenges. Two questions logically arise. First, if gender discrimination in peremptory strikes violates the equal protection clause, does that clause prohibit discrimination against both genders, or only against women? Second, if Batson covers discrimination against both genders, is this truncated strike so different from the traditional peremptory strike as to lack legislative authorization?
This second question requires delimiting “traditional peremptory strike.” § 494.480 RSMo Supp.1991. If peremptory strikes are those made for any reason whatsoever, then such a strike is constitutionally forbidden. If, on the other hand, a peremptory strike is a strike for an ever-shrinking set of reasons that must be supported by objective evidence, then the strike may be constitutional, but definitely is not a traditional peremptory strike.
With the understanding that these issues are not here resolved, I concur fully in the principal opinion.