Court Opinion

ID: 9676204
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:17:35.935028+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:45.545916
License: Public Domain

MIRABAL, Justice,
Dissenting from the en banc opinion.
Because I am persuaded that the O.J. Simpson question in this case was destined to result in the exclusion of the Blacks from the jury, I dissent. It is significant that, during voir dire, the prosecutor made no effort to learn the basis for any prospective juror’s opinion about the O.J. Simpson verdict. Further, the prosecutor did not discuss any legal aspects of the O.J. Simpson case. Rather, simply, if a prospective juror agreed that the O.J. Simpson “not guilty” verdict was “fair,” the prosecutor struck that prospective juror. We should not sanction skirting around Batson1 by condoning the peremptory strike of a member of a particular minority based solely on one answer to one question about which a vast majority of that minority have been demonstrated to agree.2 I would sustain issue five.
WILSON, Justice, joins this dissenting opinion.

. Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 89, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 1719, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986) (holding that prosecutor may not use peremptory strike against prospective juror solely on account of race, or on the assumption that Black jurors as a group will be unable to impartially consider the State's case against a Black defendant).

. In the present case, every Black venireper-son who had formed an opinion, agreed that the OJ. Simpson verdict was fair. The fact that one or two Whites agreed with the O.J. Simpson verdict and were also struck does not validate the process.