Court Opinion

ID: 9713300
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:13:01.920458+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:18.077676
License: Public Domain

BARTEAU, Judge,
concurring.
While I concur with the majority opinion, I do so as to Issue II with some hesitation. It is true that we must accord great deference to the trial court’s determination that a discriminatory intent exists. Hernandez v. New York (1991), 500 U.S. 352, 111 S.Ct. 1859, 114 L.Ed.2d 395. However, it is also true that if a discriminatory intent is not inherent in the challenged party’s explanation, the reason offered will be deemed neutral. Id. Here, the majority correctly notes that the explanations were a mixture of neutral reasons as well as gender-based reasons. Particularly in a case such as this the trial court must guard against unnecessarily limiting the use of peremptory challenges, lest the right to make peremptory challenges becomes a right in theory only. While I might have decided differently than the trial court did on this issue, because we must accord its decision great deference on what amounts to a question of fact, I concur with the majority’s resolution of Issue II.