Court Opinion

ID: 9764256
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:17:01.51876+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:55.322007
License: Public Domain

P. A. Hollingsworth, Justice, dissenting. I dissent from the majority opinion because this Court fails to examine a practice that violates the sixth and fourteenth amendments to the federal Constitution. The defendant in this case is black and was convicted by an all white jury. Defense counsel in the course of j ury selection obj ected to the prosecutor’s use of the state’s peremptory challenges. The state was accused of systematically excluding blacks from the jury. To permit a prosecutor to remove jurors solely on the ground of race on the theory that members of one race have a potential affinity with other members of that race is almost inevitably to allow the party identified with the majority to obtain a jury with affinity to that majority. Using this practice, the state can eliminate blacks from the j ury while the black defendant is powerless to exclude white members since their number exceeds that of the peremptory challenges available. We look to other states to move forward in other areas of jurisprudence. See Day v. Day, 281 Ark. 261, 663 S.W.2d 719 (1984). But when it comes to anti-discrimination rules, we are reluctant to move into the twentieth century. I would follow Massachusetts and California and stop this abhorrent practice of excluding blacks from juries. See Commonwealth v. Soares, 377 Mass. 461, 387 N.E.2d 499 (1979); People v. Wheeler, 22 Cal. 3d 263, 148 Cal. Rptr. 890, 583 P. 2d 748 (1978). Purtle, J., joins in this dissent.