Court Opinion

ID: 9852627
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:33:55.871868+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:30.979697
License: Public Domain

Coleman, J.,
dissenting.
I dissented in the panel decision, Winfield v. Commonwealth, 12 Va. App. 446, 404 S.E.2d 398 (1991), because the prosecutor’s explanation that he peremptorily struck the jurors based on their probable level of formal education failed, in my view, to rebut the presumption of purposeful discrimination. Under the standard of appellate review that we had adopted at the time of the panel decision for determining whether a prosecutor had provided a race-neutral explanation for the peremptory strikes sufficient to rebut the presumption of purposeful discrimination, see Jackson v. Commonwealth, 8 Va. App. 176, 380 S.E.2d 1 (1989), the prosecutor did not provide a sufficiently credible explanation which had a basis in fact in the record to warrant the trial judge in accepting the prosecutor’s explanation that race was not a basis for removing the three black female jurors. Id. at 453-55, 404 S.E.2d at 402-03 (Coleman, J., dissenting).
After the panel’s decision, the United States Supreme Court decided Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. 352 (1991). Although the Hernandez holding is stated in a plurality decision, a majority of the justices concurred in the view that whether the prosecutor’s intent was racially discriminatory is a factual “finding [which] will ‘largely turn on evaluation of credibility’ ” of the prosecutor by the trial judge. Hernandez, 500 U.S. at 365 (quoting Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 98 n.21 (1986)). Under the Hernandez holding, if the “prosecutor’s explanation” is “facial [ly] valid” it “will be deemed race neutral” “[u]nless a discriminatory intent is inherent in the . . . explanation.” Id. Because the prosecutor’s intent is a factual determination based largely on credibility “[d]eference” must be accorded the trial judge’s decision to believe the prosecutor. Id. The trial judge’s decision will not be set aside except for “clear error.” Id. Thus, the Court in Hernandez imposed, in my view, a much more deferential standard of federal appellate review for cases arising in the federal courts than I had thought to be required under Batson and a more deferential stan*1063dard of review than we had adopted in the Jackson decision for our state review.
The majority obviously construes the Hernandez decision to restrict significantly the scope of appellate review and apparently chooses to adopt that standard for appellant review in the Court of Appeals. Under their reading of Hernandez, we must uphold the decision of the trial judge in Winfield’s case because he believed that the prosecutor identified the three black women jurors before trial based solely on a correlation between their employment and education as persons he would likely exclude from the jury. Essentially, I agree with the majority that if we adopt the federal standard of appellate review enunciated in the Hernandez plurality, we would be required to uphold the trial judge’s factual finding that the prosecutor determined to exclude before trial the three black female jurors based upon a nebulous correlation between employment and level of formal education. However, I dissent from that holding because the Hernandez decision does not, in my view, preclude the states from utilizing or adopting their own procedural and evidentiary rules, as a matter of state law, to decide whether the presumption of racial discrimination has been rebutted, provided that the state standard minimally safeguards the constitutional equal protection rights of defendants and jurors recognized in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), and in Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. 400 (1991). Under the “concept of federalism” upon which the Hernandez plurality in large measure based its holding, 500 U.S. at 369, we may apply our established procedural and evidentiary rules in deciding whether a prosecutor has given a race-neutral explanation sufficient to overcome the presumption of purposeful racial discrimination. See Batson, 476 U.S. at 99 n.2. Thus, I would hold, contrary to what I believe to be the basis of the majority’s decision, that the standard of review we adopted in Jackson is a permissible standard to determine whether a prosecutor has rebutted the presumption of purposeful discrimination, and I would hold that the Jackson approach should control our review of the prosecutor’s action in this case. Based upon that standard, I would hold, as I said in my dissent to the panel opinion, and as Judge Benton states in his dissent, that the prosecutor failed to provide a credible race-neutral explanation for excluding the three black female jurors and that the trial judge failed to require the prosecutor to explain how and why his decision had a basis in the record. My colleague, Judge Benton *1064and I disagree, not upon the result that should obtain in this case by applying a Jackson-type analysis, but rather upon whether the Hernandez decision provides for a more restrictive deferential review for federal courts, which the majority is today adopting, than that previously followed in Jackson. Thus, although today I would join Judge Benton and reverse Winfield’s conviction by applying the standard of review we adopted in Jackson, henceforth, based upon the principle of stare decisis, I will apply the Hernandez deferential standard that the majority adopts today.
In Batson, the United States Supreme Court held that the state could not, by use of a prosecutor’s peremptory challenges, purposefully exclude members of a racial minority from jury participation solely on account of race. To do so violates the juror’s and the accused’s fourteenth amendment equal protection rights. Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. at 415. In order to establish that a prosecutor has used peremptory challenges in violation of the equal protection guarantee, the defendant bears the burden of proving purposeful discrimination by the prosecutor. Batson, 476 U.S. at 93. In meeting that burden, “the defendant is entitled to rely on the fact . . . that peremptory challenges constitute a jury selection practice that permits ‘those to discriminate who are of a mind to discriminate.’ ” Id. at 96 (citation omitted). Although no exclusive means exists to prove that a prosecutor purposefully discriminated, a defendant may establish a prima facie case of discrimination by showing “that he is a member of a cognizable racial group . . . and that the prosecutor has exercised peremptory challenges to remove from the venire members of the defendant’s race.” Id. at 96 (citations omitted). The defendant may show that the “facts and any other relevant circumstances [which may tend to explain why the prosecutor exercised the peremptory challenges] raise an inference that the prosecutor used that practice to exclude the veniremen from the petit jury on account of their race.” Id. When a defendant has presented facts that give rise to the “necessary inference of purposeful discrimination” by the prosecutor, the burden shifts to the state “to come forward with a neutral explanation for challenging black jurors.” Id. at 96-97.
As I said in my dissent to the panel’s opinion, see Winfield, 12 Va. App. at 453-55, 404 S.E.2d at 402-03, the prosecutor failed to rebut the presumption of purposeful discrimination because, even *1065if he were allowed to surmise as to the probable educational level of the jurors based on their employment information, he nevertheless failed to exclude race as the reason he excluded the three black female jurors. He did not explain why, nor was he required by the judge to explain, given the fact that, based on employment information, an equal or greater number of white members of the venire probably possessed the same level of education as the stricken black members, he used all his peremptory challenges to eliminate black jurors. The paucity of the employment information and the fact that the prosecutor made no additional effort to determine the educational level, if that had been a significant factor, discredit the prosecutor’s explanation that he considered or used that factor as a basis for exclusion. He asked no questions about the jurors’ educational level on voir dire when it would have been appropriate to have done so. The employment information concerning the seven white female jurors provided the prosecutor with no basis from which he could conclude that they were any better educated than the three black females who were stricken. Nevertheless, the prosecutor was permitted, without sufficient explanation, to use all of his challenges to exclude black members from the venire. If the trial judge believed the prosecutor and accepted as true his explanation that this was, in fact, the basis for excluding the jurors, even though it may have appeared illogical, as I read the Hernandez decision, that would be a facially race-neutral reason and whether it was, in fact, the prosecutor’s reason would be a fact that the trial judge resolved and could not be overturned on appeal because it was not “clear error.” Hernandez, 500 U.S. at 369. “[Wjhere there are two permissible views of the evidence, the fact finder’s choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous.” Id.
Today, a majority of the Court adopts without serious analysis the standard of review posited by the Hernandez plurality. We are not required to adopt this approach and, I believe, would be better advised not to do so. Both the Batson and Hernandez decisions permit states to craft their own procedural and evidentiary rules to effectuate the protections recognized in Batson. The Supreme Court acknowledged that states may design their own “version [s] of the evidentiary standard,” Batson, 476 U.S. at 99, and expressly “decline [d] ... to formulate particular procedures to be followed upon a defendant’s timely objection to a prosecutor’s challenges.” Id.; see also Hernandez, 500 U.S. at 369 (court *1066noted that to conduct a more searching review of state decisions than federal would be contrary to principles of federalism).
In the absence of an explicit mandate from the Supreme Court identifying a constitutional evidentiary standard, we have declared in Virginia that “[t]he trial judge cannot merely accept at face value the reasons proffered but must independently evaluate those reasons as he would any disputed fact.” Jackson, 8 Va. App. at 185, 380 S.E.2d at 5. “Rubber stamp approval of all nonracial explanations will not satisfy the command of Batson.” Id. (citing Batson, 476 U.S. at 97-98). “The record must contain findings by the trial judge, not just a conclusion, in order to facilitate both the initial inquiry and appellate review.” Id. It would be illusory, I believe, for courts to acknowledge that a practice of discrimination is presumptively practiced in violation of the accused’s and the juror’s equal protection rights and then to permit the person who presumably used that discriminatory tactic to vindicate his or her action by offering a hollow, nebulous, or meaningless explanation. I believe that the trial judge condoned such a practice in this case and that the majority’s decision does the same. “Trial judges must scrutinize such nebulous explanations to be satisfied that the prosecutor is not using the stated reason as a subterfuge to deny an accused a jury comprised of a racially balanced cross-section of the community.” Langhorne v. Commonwealth, 13 Va. App. 97, 107-08, 409 S.E.2d 476, 483 (1991). Contrary to the majority’s position, it was not constrained by precedent to adopt the Hernandez standard of review, and in my view, we should demand more in requiring a prosecutor to rebut the presumption of purposeful discrimination.
The standard of appellate review approved in Hernandez, and now the standard of state appellate review the majority of this Court adopts, does much to undermine a defendant’s and a juror’s constitutional rights not to suffer purposeful discrimination through the use of the peremptory challenge process. By imposing such procedural and evidentiary obstacles as those set forth in Hernandez, the Supreme Court, and now our Court, have severely curtailed and limited the beneficial impact in affording meaningful equal protection to racial minorities to participate in administering the judicial process, which the Batson decision was expected to accomplish. Due to the consequences which I believe that the Hernandez decision portends for curbing the Batson *1067equal protection rights, I agree, in principle, with much that Judge Benton has said in dissent. Nevertheless, I write separately because Judge Benton does not construe Hernandez as I do to limit the scope of appellate review to the extent that it does. Thus, while it is my view that the searching review suggested by Judge Benton is desirable, I cannot reconcile what he would have us do with the Hernandez decision, unless we are to depart from that holding on state evidentiary and procedural grounds.