Court Opinion

ID: 9540032
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:12:22.912749+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:32.927628
License: Public Domain

WORKE, Judge,
(dissenting).
I respectfully disagree with the majority conclusion that the district court commit*867ted reversible error in denying appellant’s exercise of a peremptory challenge to remove a Latino veniremember. While the facts supporting the majority determination are sufficient, I disagree with the conclusion that the district court failed to properly apply the facts of the case to the exercise of a peremptory challenge.
The district court indicated that appellant’s attorney had “presented a race-neutral explanation for his strike of [M.T.].” But the majority qualifies the court’s statement as a “finding.” I do not identify this statement in an isolated context but, rather, conclude that the district court was determining that the second step of the Batson analysis had been presented and it was now the court’s turn to analyze whether the explanation was pretextual “in order to remove [M.T.] due to [M.T.’s] race.” And, here, the court conducted a detailed analysis determining that the strike was not race neutral, particularly in light of the facts and history of the case. The court, in a well-reasoned analysis, indicated that appellant had a “consistent pattern ... of striking nonwhite jurors.”
Our job as a reviewing court is to determine whether the court properly applied the Batson factors in assuring that jury selection is race neutral. In this case, the court properly did its job in assuring that the jury .panel was fairly comprised. In my opinion the record supports the district court’s decision in denying appellant’s attempt to strike M.T. from the jury panel.
Furthermore, even if the district court improperly seated M.T., the denial of appellant’s peremptory challenge is not automatically reversible error based on recent United States Supreme Court precedent. In Rivera v. Illinois, — U.S.-,-, 129 S.Ct. 1446, 1450, 1453, 173 L.Ed.2d 320 (2009), Rivera challenged his first-degree murder conviction on Fourteenth Amendment grounds, arguing that the district court improperly denied his peremptory challenge and that the Due Process Clause requires an automatic reversal of a conviction whenever a criminal defendant’s peremptory challenge is erroneously denied. Id., 129 S.Ct. at 1453. The Supreme Court held:
If a. defendant is tried before a qualified jury composed of individuals not chal-lengeable for cause, the loss of a peremptory challenge due to a state court’s good-faith error is not a matter of federal constitutional concern. Rather, it is a matter for the State to address under its own laws.
Id. at. 1453. The Court further noted, “Because peremptory challenges are within the States’ province to grant or withhold, the mistaken denial of a state-provided peremptory challenge does not, without more, violate the Federal Constitution,” thus, is not reversible error per se. Id. at 1454. Accordingly, even if the district court erroneously denied appellant’s peremptory challenge in this case, seating M.T. did not necessarily violate appellant’s constitutional rights and an automatic reversal of his conviction is unwarranted.