Court Opinion

ID: 9714755
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:44:55.962508+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:15.221395
License: Public Domain

Brown, J.
(dissenting). I dissent from part 1 of the majority opinion. Because of the prosecutor’s shameful and flagrant misuse of the peremptory challenge to exclude a juror solely on the basis of race, the defendant did not receive a fair trial. I am shocked that in this day and age (long after the noted trilogy of cases in this area1 1) prosecutors are still challenging persons peremptorily for no reason other than their ethnicity. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Brown, 11 Mass. App. Ct. 288, 293-295 (1981). This is improper and immoral, apart from being unconstitutional.2
The flimsy excuses3 offered here were so transparent that the prosecutor, obviously embarrassed, later attempted to rectify what he seemed to acknowledge as error by sug*736gesting to the judge that it might be prudent to “discharge the jury and begin again.4 *The question to be asked is, Why did the prosecutor do itl If prosecutors want trials to be fair, should not they, as well as defense counsel, try to get it right the first time? It should be the aim of all to strive earnestly to produce as close to an impeccable trial as is possible.5 See Commonwealth v. Bodden, 24 Mass. App. Ct. 135, 141 (1987) (Brown, J., concurring). Cf. Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293 (1963).
Let me conclude with a notion discussed by the Supreme Judicial Court in Commonwealth v. Soares, 377 Mass. 461, 491, cert. denied, 444 U.S. 881 (1979), and mentioned by the majority here today. When defense counsel raises an objection based on ethnicity or gender to the prosecutor’s exercise of one6 or more peremptory challenges, the trial judge should be required to perform a more searching review of the prosecutor’s reasons than is required at present, see Commonwealth v. Brown, 11 Mass. App. Ct. at 292-295, otherwise prosecutors will be “free to discriminate against blacks in jury selection provided that they hold that discrimination to an ‘acceptable’ level.” Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 105 (1986) (Marshall, J., concurring). The trial judge should require that the prosecutor’s grounds approximate or be the same as those needed to sustain a challenge for cause. See Brown, McGuire & Winters, The Peremptory Challenge as Manipulative Device in Criminal Trials: Traditional Use or Abuse, 14 New England L.Rev. 192, 235 n.244 (1978). See *737also id. at 233 n.236. Compare Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. at 107-108. (Marshall, J., concurring). If we do not make this the test,7 we will be left with a process whereby blacks are routinely excluded from juries based upon what even a dissenting Supreme Court Justice in Batson conceded were at best “crudely stereotypical and ... in many cases . . . hopelessly mistaken” instincts. 476 U.S. at 138 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting). Justice Marshall said it best: “[T]rial courts face the difficult burden of assessing prosecutor’s motives. . . . Any prosecutor can easily assert facially neutral reasons for striking a juror, and trial courts are.ill-equipped to second-guess those reasons” (citations omitted).8 Id. at 105-106 (Marshall, J., concurring). For a case in point, see Commonwealth v. Kelly, 10 Mass. App. Ct. 847 (1980) (explanation based on prospective juror’s “demeanor, manner and the ‘smirk on her face’ ” found to be “an acceptable reason”).

See Commonwealth v. Soares, 377 Mass. 461, cert. denied, 444 U.S. 881 (1979); Commonwealth v. Sanders, 381 Mass. 637 (1981); Commonwealth v. Hobbs, 385 Mass. 863 (1982).

The same, of course, holds true for the use of peremptory challenges to eliminate potential jurors based solely on gender. See Commonwealth v. Allen, 379 Mass. 564, 576 (1980); Commonwealth v. Reid, 384 Mass. 247, 253 (1981).

For a well crafted opinion exposing the usual disingenuous responses of counsel when asked to show some basis other than race or sex for the exercise of peremptory challenges, see Commonwealth v. DiMatteo, 12 Mass. App. Ct. 547, 551-552 (1981).

Appellate counsel usually recharacterize such an error of the prosecutor as a “regrettable misstep.”

This impassioned plea for prosecutors to steer clear of unnecessary error and to strive for a fair trial has been made on more numerous occasions than space will permit me to catalogue. For a representative sample, see Commonwealth v. Paiva, 16 Mass. App. Ct. 561, 563 (1983); Commonwealth v. Kozec, 21 Mass. App. Ct. 355, 366 (1985) (Brown, J., concurring); Commonwealth v. Young, 22 Mass. App. Ct. 452, 457 (1986) (Brown, J., concurring); Commonwealth v. Bodden, supra.

This court in Commonwealth v. DiMatteo, 12 Mass. App. Ct. 547, 553 (1981), in language quoted in note 1 of the majority opinion, took a more realistic view of the state of affairs. For another illustration, see Commonwealth v. Clark, 378 Mass. 392, 407-408 n.17 (1979).

The present test, as the majority acknowledges, permits a trial judge to accept as valid (i.e., not merely based on ethnicity or gender) explanations so flimsy as that counsel did not like the prospective juror’s “looks.” Commonwealth v. Lattimore, 396 Mass. 446, 448 (1985). See also Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. at 105 (Marshall, J., concurring), where Justice Marshall points out the limitations of the Massachusetts approach, citing Commonwealth v. Robinson, 382 Mass. 189, 195 (1981).

Justice Marshall’s warning and fears found tangible form in the 4-4 affirmance of a conviction by an all-white jury in Tompkins v. Texas, 490 U.S. 754 (1989), aff'g 774 S.W. 2d 195 (Tex. Crim. App. 1987). The dispute in that case concerned whether the government’s explanations for three peremptory challenges were neutral and case-related. Query, what is it about the racial relationship of blacks and whites in this society that causes such fear that blacks would be unwilling to do justice when the proof supports charges such as those brought against the defendant in Tompkins'? There, the defendant, a black man, kidnapped the victim, a white person, robbed her of her automated bankteller card, tied her to a tree, and gagged her with a cloth, causing her death by suffocation. See also the landmark case of Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202 (1965), where the crime was equally heinous. ■