Court Opinion

ID: 9861718
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 00:22:22.574353+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:28:52.014423
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HOURIHANE, dissenting: The majority concludes that the State’s explanation for excusing veniremember Bertha "White was "clearly pretextual” and thus necessitated the reversal of the defendant’s conviction and sentence. In reaching this conclusion, the majority notes that, when asked to proffer a basis for his challenge of Ms. White, the prosecutor indicated that he was challenging her because she had a son approximately the defendant’s age1 and he felt that she would be sympathetic toward the defendant. The majority then concludes that this reason was "clearly pretextual” because a white member of the jury who also had a son approximately the defendant’s age was not challenged by the State. I respectfully disagree for the reasons that follow. First, the courts of this state have repeatedly recognized that the State may legitimately exercise a peremptory challenge to exclude a prospective juror because he or she has children of an age close to the defendant’s. See People v. Andrews, 155 Ill. 2d 286 (1993); People v. Lovelady, 221 Ill. App. 3d 829 (1991); People v. Baisten, 203 Ill. App. 3d 64 (1990); People v. Batchelor, 202 Ill. App. 3d 316 (1990). Accordingly, there is nothing inherently suspicious or pretextual about the State offering such a reason for excluding a potential juror. Second, it would be improper for us to assume, as the majority does, that the trial court erred in finding an absence of discriminatory intent merely because the State accepted a white juror who possessed a similar characteristic. As our supreme court stated in People v. Wiley, 165 Ill. 2d 259 (1995): "In reviewing the reasons given by the State, it is necessary to bear in mind that' "in many instances there will be no single criterion that serves as the basis for the decision whether to excuse a particular venireman.” ’ (People v. Mitchell (1992), 152 Ill. 2d 274, 295, quoting People v. Mack (1989), 128 Ill. 2d 231, 239.) The State’s purposeful discrimination is not automatically established by the mere coincidence that an excluded juror shared a characteristic with a juror who was not challenged. The excluded juror may possess an additional trait that caused the State to find him unacceptable, while the juror who was not challenged may possess an additional characteristic that prompted the State to find him acceptable to serve as a juror. [Citation.] '[A] peremptory challenge is based on a combination of traits, and a juror possessing an unfavorable trait may be accepted while another juror possessing that same negative trait, but also possessing other negative traits, may be challenged.’ Mitchell, 152 Ill. 2d at 295.” People v. Wiley, 165 Ill. 2d at 282-83. In this case, the State did not challenge white veniremember Angelo Baez though he also had a son close to the age of the defendant. While this fact may raise an inference of purposeful racial discrimination, such is not dispositive. People v. Mack, 128 Ill. 2d 231 (1989). The record reveals that at least three members of the actual jury had children close to the defendant’s age. Mr. Baez, a white resident of the north side of Chicago was married and had a 28-year-old son who was serving two years in prison for auto theft. Mr. Burns was a black, married resident of the south side of Chicago who worked as a Baptist pastor and had two children in their mid-thirties. Mr. Randle, a black, divorced resident of the west side of Chicago, worked for the city and also had children near the age of the defendant. In order to conclude that the prosecutor’s failure to challenge these other similarly situated parents evinced a discriminatory intent, you must ignore the second part of the reason identified by the prosecutor for challenging White, as well as the race of those similarly situated but not challenged. The prosecutor stated that he challenged Ms. White because she had a child close to the defendant’s age and because he believed that she would be sympathetic toward the defendant. While the prosecutor did not elaborate on his reasons for believing that White would have been sympathetic, peremptories are intended to permit rejection for real or imagined partiality that is not easily designated or demonstrable. Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202, 13 L. Ed. 2d 759, 85 S. Ct. 824 (1965). This is true even in the context of a Batson determination. People v. Munson, 171 Ill. 2d 158 (1996). Moreover, the fact that the prosecutor did not challenge two black members of the venire with children near the age of the defendant supports the conclusion that the prosecutor did not challenge Ms. White based on her parental status as a pretext for discriminating based upon race. Rather, this fact seems to suggest, as the trial court found, that the prosecutor honestly believed that Ms. White would have been more sympathetic than other parents who were not challenged. Unless a discriminatory intent is inherent in the reason proffered by the State, the reason is sufficient to sustain the State’s burden at the second stage of a Batson proceeding regardless of whether or not the explanation makes any sense. Purkett v. Elem, 514 U.S. at 768_69, 131 L. Ed. 2d at 839-40, 115 S. Ct. at 1771. The question then becomes whether the defendant has succeeded in proving intentional discrimination. Purkett v. Elem, 514 U.S. 765, 131 L. Ed. 2d 834, 115 S. Ct. 1769 (1995). In making this determination, the court should look to the totality of the relevant facts. Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. 352, 114 L. Ed. 2d 395, 111 S. Ct. 1859 (1991). Here, the majority has failed to focus upon the totality of the circumstances as it pertains to the prosecutor’s motive and instead focused upon the reasonableness of the explanation proffered. While the record indicates that the State used four of the six, or 66% of, peremptory challenges exercised to dismiss black members of the venire, this fact alone is not sufficient to establish intentional discrimination. See People v. Henderson, 142 Ill. 2d 258 (1990); People v. Anderson, 266 Ill. App. 3d 947 (1994); People v. Dukes, 227 Ill. App. 3d 988 (1992). Moreover, the record further reveals that at least four members of the jury were black; a fact that militates against a finding of intentional discrimination. Anderson, 266 Ill. App. 3d 947. The absence of additional information in the record regarding the racial composition of the venire as a whole and other relevant circumstances is construed against the defendant, who has the burden of preserving a record. Henderson, 142 Ill. 2d at 279-80. A court of review must remain mindful that a trial court’s determination of whether the defendant has established purposeful discrimination is a finding of fact which should not be overturned unless it was clearly erroneous. People v. Ramey, 151 Ill. 2d 498 (1992); People v. Hope, 147 Ill. 2d 315 (1992). Because the record in the present case does not support such a conclusion, I respectfully disagree. Moreover, I disagree with the majority’s finding that trial counsel provided ineffective assistance that would also justify the reversal of the defendant’s conviction. The majority concludes that trial counsel’s failure to present the defendant as a witness after indicating that he would do so in opening statement, combined with counsel’s later reference to this failure, served to prejudice the defendant and would have provided an independent basis for the reversal of the defendant’s conviction. While it is true that counsel should have requested a ruling on the admissibility of the defendant’s prior conviction prior to opening statement, this error was not prejudicial. As this court noted in People v. Schlager, 247 Ill. App. 3d 921, 932 (1993), the test is not whether counsel kept all the promises made during his opening statement, but whether his errors were so serious that in their absence the result of the trial would have been different. Viewed under the applicable standard, the errors committed by trial counsel do not warrant the reversal of the defendant’s conviction. Similarly, the other errors identified by the majority regarding prosecutorial misconduct do not constitute grounds for reversal. For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent.  The record indicates that at the time of the trial the defendant was 36 years old and Ms. White had children ages 25 and 21.