Court Opinion

ID: 9854512
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:08:29.12164+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:23:07.745705
License: Public Domain

Justice Frye
concurring.
I concur in both the reasoning and conclusion reached by the Court. I nonetheless write separately to express my concerns regarding the future application of today’s decision.
In Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 90 L.Ed. 2d 69 (1986), the United States Supreme Court held that the discriminatory use of peremptory challenges in a single case violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. That Court held that the equal protection clause forbids the prosecutor from challenging potential black jurors solely because of their race or on the assumption that black jurors as a group will be unable impartially to consider the State’s case against a black defendant. Id. The Supreme Court, however, declined to formulate particular procedures to be followed by trial courts upon a timely objection to a prosecutor’s challenges. Id. at 99, 90 L.Ed. 2d at 89-90. Today, this Court breathes life into the Batson holding by formulating procedures to be followed in determining whether a black defendant’s constitutional right to equal protection has been violated by the State’s use of peremptory challenges to exclude blacks from petit jury service.
The primordial concern and motivation behind the Batson decision was to afford black citizens “the same right and opportunity to participate in the administration of justice enjoyed by the white population.” Id. at 91, 90 L.Ed. 2d at 84, citing Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202, 13 L.Ed. 2d 755 (1965). To that end, the State’s use of peremptory challenges to strike all or a disproportionate number of black prospective jurors will no longer be immune from constitutional scrutiny. Once the defendant has made a prima facie showing of purposeful discrimination, the burden then shifts to the State to articulate a racially neutral reason for exercising its challenges.
In this case, this Court is satisfied that the proffered explanations by the State sufficiently demonstrate racially neutral reasons for the State’s peremptory challenges of most of the black jurors tendered to it. Our action today must not be interpreted as *260a license for prosecuting attorneys to proceed with “business as usual,” under the assumption that this right, implicit in the equal protection clause and given vitality by the Batson ruling, is a right without a remedy. Although this Court will “rely on the good judgment of the trial courts to distinguish bona fide reasons for such peremptories from sham excuses belatedly contrived to avoid admitting acts of group discrimination,” People v. Hall, 35 Cal. 3d 161, 167, 197 Cal. Rptr. 71, 75, 672 P. 2d 854, 858 (1983), we will review with a scrupulous eye such proffered reasons in an effort to thwart the remnants of the past pernicious practice of excluding blacks from juries for no other reason than for the color of their skin.
In the case sub judice, the State sought jurors that fit neatly into an acceptable “profile.” This profile showed that the State sought individuals who were “stable, conservative, mature, government oriented, sympathetic to the plight of the victim, and sympathetic to law enforcement crime solving problems and pressures.” While I agree with the Court that these are “legitimate criteria in picking a jury” in this case, State v. Jackson, slip op. at 8, I envision similar “profiles” that may be constructed in a manner so as to systematically exclude blacks. Such “profiles” must not “sweep so broadly” as to attenuate their validity and justify the exclusion of any and all blacks. See State v. Gilmore, 103 N.J. 508, 511 A. 2d 1150 (1986). For that reason, such “profiles” should be particularly suspect in a court’s determination that the State has offered a sufficient response to defendant’s challenge. For this profile to withstand such scrutiny, it must be legitimate, reasonably specific, and related to the particular case to be tried. Batson, at 98, 90 L.Ed. 2d at 88.
Absent the total abolition of peremptory challenges, we likely will again face the challenge of determining whether they have been used in an unconstitutional manner. It is the province of the General Assembly to determine whether peremptory challenges have outlived their usefulness. However, it is the province of the courts to ensure that they are used in such a manner not offensive to the constitutional rights of our citizens. We must remain alert to offers of proof made by the State that are but mere colloquial euphemisms for the very prejudice that constitutes invidious discrimination. Too, we must be careful not to lessen the burden of the State and therefore put a crippling burden on the *261defendant so that defendant’s right to trial by an impartial jury is so prejudiced that he is effectively left a right without a remedy.
I am satisfied that, in the instant case, the trial judge undertook “a sensitive inquiry into such circumstantial and direct evidence of intent as may be available” and that he properly found that the State’s use of peremptory challenges was not purposefully discriminatory. Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 266, 50 L.Ed. 2d 450, 465 (1977). Accordingly, I join the Court’s decision.
Justice Martin joins in this concurring opinion.