Court Opinion

ID: 9496480
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:27:45.522266+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:36.315992
License: Public Domain

STAPLETON, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I concur with the Court’s disposition of Dejesus’s claim charging that the government exercised racially-based peremptory challenges. I further agree that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in sentencing DeJesus. However, I am unable at this point to conclude that the prosecution’s peremptory challenges of jurors Bates and McBride involved no violation of the Equal Protection Clause.
As the Court correctly points out, peremptory challenges exist so that a litigating party may excuse a potential juror it believes is less desirable than other potential jurors, even though the party cannot meet the burden of having the juror removed for cause. Peremptory challenges are necessarily based on speculation that particular traits, characteristics, conduct, or personal experiences of a prospective juror bear a correlation to a bias or quality that the party exercising the strike deems undesirable in a juror. In short, the process enables attorneys to engage in stereotyping when utilizing the peremptory challenges that they have been allotted.
The Supreme Court, however, has identified characteristics that may not, consistent with the Equal Protection Clause, be used as a basis for peremptory challenges. Race-based peremptory challenges were ruled out in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986). Thereafter, in J.E.B. v. Alabama, 511 U.S. 127, 114 S.Ct. 1419, 128 L.Ed.2d 89 (1994), the Court concluded that gender-based stereotypes may not be used as a basis for a peremptory challenge. This is true even if the purported bias or quality inferred in accordance with the stereotype would, standing alone,, be a permitted consideration for exercising a peremptory challenge. Thus, a litigant, like the plaintiff in J.E.B., may not infer solely from the fact that a prospective juror is male that he *514will be likely to side with a defendant in a paternity suit and then base a peremptory challenge on that inference.
As our Court recently noted in Rico v. Leftridge-Byrd, 340 F.3d 178, 182 (3d Cir.2003), “The J.E.B. majority explicitly grounded its decision on its conclusion that the Equal Protection Clause bars peremptory challenges based on gender and, it strongly suggested, on any classification otherwise receiving ‘heightened scrutiny’ under the Clause.”1 Based on that strong suggestion, I would hold that the Equal Protection Clause bars the use of stereotypes based upon religion in exercising peremptory challenges. When state action “establishes ‘a classification [that] ... is drawn upon inherently suspect distinctions such as race, religion, or alienage’ ..., it must meet the strict scrutiny standard. ...” Schumacher v. Nix, 965 F.2d 1262, 1266 (3d Cir.1992) (quoting from City of New Orleans v. Dukes, 427 U.S. 297, 303, 96 S.Ct. 2513, 49 L.Ed.2d 511 (1976)); DeHart v. Horn, 227 F.3d 47, 61 (3d Cir.2000) (en banc) (citing Maldonado v. Houstoun, 157 F.3d 179, 184 (3d Cir.1998), for the proposition that a “classification that draws upon suspect distinctions, such as religion, is subject to strict scrutiny”) (internal quotations omitted).
One may peremptorily strike a juror for being inarticulate or uneducated. But one may not, I believe, assume that because a prospective juror is of a particular race, gender, or religion, he is inarticulate or uneducated, and then base a peremptory strike on that assumption. Similarly, a prosecutor may undoubtedly strike a juror for being unwilling to sit in judgment of another human being. However, a prosecutor may not, consistent with the Equal Protection Clause, infer solely from a prospective juror’s race, gender, or religion that he will be unwilling to sit in judgment of another, and then offer that unwillingness as a permissible basis for a peremptory challenge.
This does not mean that a litigant may not peremptorily strike a juror because of a belief that happens to have a religious basis. But a litigant cannot use a juror’s religious affiliation or practice as the sole basis for attributing such a particular belief to the juror. Here, the voir dire transcript reveals no indication from either McBride or Bates that they would be reluctant to convict or pass judgment on *515another human being. If they had exhibited such a reluctance, the government clearly would have been able to use such a belief, regardless of whether it had a religious basis, as the reason behind a peremptory strike. However, both McBride and Bates indicated precisely the opposite of any such unwillingness: that they would follow the law and base a verdict only on the evidence in the case.
The record makes clear that the sole basis for the government’s belief that such reluctance existed was the fact that McBride and Bates were heavily involved in the practice of their religious faith. What the government did was to assume that individuals heavily involved in the practice of their religious faith, as a class, are likely to be reluctant to sit in judgment of others. This is precisely the kind of stereotyping that I believe is foreclosed by the teachings of J.E.B.2 The Court concludes, as did the District Court, that even though striking a juror on account of his religious affiliation may violate Equal Protection, striking him because of his “heightened religious involvement rather than a specific religious affiliation” does not. Slip Op. p. 502. I cannot agree. A classification based on “heightened religious involvement” is no less a classification based on religion than is a classification based on religious affiliation. The government has proffered no authority from Equal Protection or Free Exercise jurisprudence suggesting the contrary and I am aware of none. Once a prosecutor begins discriminating against individuals because they engage in religious activities (regardless of what religion they are or the degree to which they engage in those activities), or because they are non-religious (or engage in only a limited number of religious activities), the prosecutor’s actions must be subjected to heightened scrutiny.
Because the prosecution discriminated against Bates and McBride on account of their practice of their religion, I would reverse the judgment of the District Court. At the same time, I agree with the Court that neutral grounds for striking McBride and Bates may have played a role in the prosecutor’s decisions. McBride indicated that he had learned to forgive his cousin’s killer, and the prosecution asserted that Bates diverted his eyes from the prosecution during voir dire. Therefore, I would remand this case to the District Court for a mixed motive analysis consistent with our decision in Gattis v. Snyder, 278 F.3d 222, 234-35 (3d Cir.2002).

. The Court's analysis is reflected in the following observations:
Under our equal protection jurisprudence, gender-based classifications require "an exceedingly persuasive justification'' in order to survive constitutional scrutiny. Thus, the only question is whether discrimination on the basis of gender in jury selection substantially furthers the State’s legitimate interest in achieving a fair and impartial trial. In making this assessment, we do not weigh the value of peremptory challenges as an institution against our asserted commitment to eradicate invidious discrimination from the courtroom. Instead, we consider whether peremptory challenges based on gender stereotypes provide substantial aid to a litigant’s effort to secure a fair and impartial jury.
J.E.B., 511 U.S. at 136-37, 114 S.Ct. 1419 (citations and footnotes omitted). After con-eluding that a litigant's interest in using peremptory challenges based on gender stereotype did not provide "an exceedingly persuasive justification,” the Court explained what remained of peremptory challenges:
Our conclusion that litigants may not strike potential jurors solely on the basis of gender does not imply the elimination of all peremptory challenges. Neither does it conflict with a State’s legitimate interest in using such challenges in its effort to secure a fair and impartial jury. Parties still may remove jurors who they feel might be less acceptable than others on the panel; gender simply may not serve as a proxy for bias. Parties may also exercise their peremptory challenges to remove from the ve-nire any group or class of individuals normally subject to "rational basis” review.
J.E.B., 511 U.S. at 143, 114 S.Ct. 1419.

. As the Court concedes, the only "fair inference” to be drawn from the record is that Bates and McBride were Christians, and it well may be that their specific religious affiliation played a role in the prosecutor’s decision. It is unnecessary to resolve that issue, however. Whether the prosecutor's conclusion about unwillingness to sit in judgment was based on Bates's and McBride’s involvement in the practice of religion or, more particularly, on their involvement in their Christian faith, their exclusions from jury service were based on a suspect religious classification giving rise to heightened scrutiny.