Court Opinion

ID: 9565121
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:15:17.870515+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:25.018616
License: Public Domain

*598ZIMMERMAN, Justice:
(concurring in the result).
I concur in the majority’s disposition of all of defendant’s contentions on appeal, and I concur that the matter must be remanded. I write to explain my view of the proper resolution of defendant's challenge to the prosecution’s use of one of its per-emptories to remove a panel member with a Hispanic surname. I think the evidence presented by defendant was sufficient to “raise an inference that the prosecutor used the [peremptory challenge] to exclude [Mr. Lopez] from the petit jury on account of [his] race.” Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 1723, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986). Presumably becausé Batson had neither been decided nor made retroactive at the time of trial, the prosecutor made no attempt to rebut the inference raised by defendant’s showing. In dictum, Justice Howe’s opinion strives to do the prosecutor’s work for him by speculating as to why the juror was struck, based on what little evidence there is in the record. I find this explanation unpersuasive. On remand, I would direct the trial court to consider the defendant to have met his burden. Because neither Batson nor Griffith v. Kentucky, — U.S. -, 107 S.Ct. 708, 93 L.Ed.2d 649 (1987), which made Batson retroactive, id. 107 S.Ct. at 710, 716, had been decided at the time of the trial, the prosecutor should be given an opportunity to rebut the inference. Once this is done, the trial judge can proceed to rule on the question under Batson.
DURHAM, J., concurs in the concurring in the result opinion of ZIMMERMAN, J.