Court Opinion

ID: 9495174
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:56:24.955998+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:51.759556
License: Public Domain

COFFEY, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I.
I concur with the majority’s holding that while it is not the trial court’s obligation to search for evidence suggesting that the State struck potential jurors on the basis of race, the trial court also may not refuse to consider evidence proffered by a defendant attempting to raise a prima facie case of discrimination in the jury selection process. Thus, I agree with the majority’s statement that in the extraordinary case when a defendant “request[s] a comparison analysis and provide[s] the court with all of the relevant characteristics of the excluded and accepted venire members,” the trial court may not “exclude from the prima facie case an entire category of evidence that has the potential to throw light on the *557question of intentional discrimination.” Ante at 549.
However, I am unable to join the majority’s expression of “concern with the Illinois Supreme Court’s statement ... that the fact that the victim was of the same race as the defendant tended to preclude a finding of purposeful discrimination” in this case. Ante at 550. I believe that whenever a Batson hearing takes place, one of the many relevant factors in the analysis of whether the State engaged in intentional discrimination must include whether the stricken venirepersons were of the same race as the defendant and the victim.1
I condemn racism, as do most other people worthy of being called citizens of this great country, and I believe it is the duty of the trial judge to ensure that the jury selection process is free of any hint of racism and/or prejudice. At the same time, I feel strongly that appellate courts should exercise great restraint and avoid interfering with the trial judge’s ultimate determination — based upon the court record and upon the judge’s observations, judgment, and life experiences — of whether there has been a Batson violation in any given case.
When Batson hearings are held in cases dealing with a black defendant and a black victim, the trial judge may very well doubt that the prosecutor was striking black ven-irepersons on the basis of their race. The vast majority of counsellors I have dealt with, whether for the defense or the prosecution, are upstanding, conscientious public servants who take seriously their obligations under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), and believe that men and women of all races are equally able to evaluate cases in an impartial manner based solely on the evidence presented to them. If the judge has knowledge of or is advised by some other reliable source that the prosecutor believes that race is an irrelevant factor, then the judge might be more likely to believe that the prosecutor’s proffered race-neutral reason for striking an individual black venireperson is truthful. Thereafter, upon review of the entire record and based upon his or her knowledge and observations, the trial judge may rule that the defendant has failed to carry his burden of establishing a constitutional violation.2 Thus, I believe, unlike the majority; *558“that the fact that the victim was of the same race as the defendant” may, indeed, “tend[ ] to preclude a finding of purposeful discrimination by the prosecution,” provided that this fact is considered along with all the other facts and evidence in the record. See id. at 96-98, 106 S.Ct. 1712.
II.
I also wish to comment on the value of the statistical evidence proffered by Henderson in an effort to establish discrimination in the jury selection process in this case. According to Henderson, his statistics demonstrate that the Government used peremptory challenges to strike more blacks from the venire panel than similarly-situated whites. Although the majority states, on the one hand, that “we are not actually making a finding that this evidence supports a finding of discrimination,” the majority goes on to state that “after proper analysis, [Henderson’s] statistics might support a finding of race discrimination” and that “such a finding would be appropriate only after a proper statistical analysis.” Ante at 550. I write separately to point out and make clear that this present record is barren of any evidence except Henderson’s statistics and that the trial judge should not rely solely on statistical evidence, standing alone without consideration of all the other facts and circumstances in the record, to find discrimination. Statistical evidence must always be considered along with all the other materials in the record and may not be given controlling weight as a matter of law.
I well remember Mark Twain’s adage (which was later repeated in Griffin v. Board of Regents, 795 F.2d 1281 (7th Cir.1986)) that “[t]here are three kinds of lies — lies, damned lies and statistics.” Id. at 1289. Statistics may be, and frequently are, very helpful and trustworthy when properly calculated and properly applied to the situation at hand along with all of the other evidence in the record. However, when viewed in isolation without proper consideration of the entire record, a statistical comparison illustrating the prosecutor’s use of peremptory challenges against “similarly-situated” black and white veni-repersons is of little value, for the statistics may fail to account for “the variety of factors and considerations that go into a lawyer’s decision to select certain jurors while challenging others that appear to be similar.” People v. Johnson, 47 Cal.3d 1194, 255 Cal.Rptr. 569, 767 P.2d 1047, 1056 (1989). Some of the myriad of potential factors for striking potential jurors might include not merely whether the juror has a prior police record but also the severity of the criminal history; not only whether the juror was a victim of crime but also the nature of the crime and the date of the event; not only whether the juror’s family has had prior contacts with law enforcement officers or attorneys, but also the nature and number of those contacts as well as the quality of the friendly and unfriendly relationship between the venireperson and the relative involved and law enforcement officer or attorney involved.
“Trial lawyers recognize that it is a combination of factors rather than any single one which often leads to the exercise of a peremptory challenge. In addition, the particular combination or mix of jurors which a lawyer seeks may, and often does, change as certain jurors are removed or seated in the jury box.” Id. Thus:
It may be acceptable, for example, to have one juror with a particular point of view but unacceptable to have more than one with that view. If the panel as seated appears to contain a sufficient number of jurors who appear strong-willed and favorable to a lawyer’s position, the lawyer might be satisfied with a *559jury that includes one or more passive or timid appearing jurors. However, if one or more of the supposed favorable or strong jurors is excused either for cause or peremptory challenge and the replacement jurors appear to be passive or timid types, it would not be unusual or unreasonable for the lawyer to peremptorily challenge one of these apparently less favorable jurors even though other similar types remain. These same considerations apply when considering the age, education, training, employment, prior jury service, and experience of the prospective jurors.
It is also common knowledge among trial lawyers that the same factors used in evaluating a juror may be given different weight depending on the number of peremptory challenges the lawyer has at the time of the exercise of the particular challenge and the number of challenges remaining with the other side. Near the end of the voir dire process a lawyer will naturally be more cautious about “spending” his increasingly precious peremptory challenges. Thus at the beginning of voir dire the lawyer may exercise his challenges freely against a person who has had a minor adverse police contact and later be more hesitant with his challenges on that ground for fear that if he exhausts them too soon, he may be forced to go to trial with a juror who exhibits an even stronger bias. Moreover, as the number of challenges decreases, a lawyer necessarily evaluates whether the prospective jurors remaining in the courtroom appear to be better or worse than those who are seated. If they appear better, he may elect to excuse a previously passed juror hoping to draw an even better juror from the remaining panel.
Id. at 1056-57.
It should be apparent, therefore, that the very dynamics of the jury selection process make it difficult, if not impossible, to focus exclusively on statistics when comparing the peremptory challenge of one juror with the retention of another juror who on paper appears to be substantially similar. I make this point for I trust that the Illinois state courts will not be left with the misconception that Henderson’s statistical evidence, standing alone, will necessarily support a finding that the State discriminated in the jury selection process.
We must never forget that “a trial lawyer’s judgments about a juror’s sympathies are sometimes based on experienced hunches and educated guesses derived from a juror’s responses at voir dire or a juror’s ‘bare looks and gestures.’ ” J.E.B. v. Alabama, 511 U.S. 127, 148, 114 S.Ct. 1419, 128 L.Ed.2d 89 (1994) (O’Connor, J., concurring). The trial judge normally determines whether an improper factor motivated a lawyer’s use of a peremptory challenge not by looking at statistics alone but by judging the lawyer’s credibility. See Marin, 7 F.3d at 686 (quoting United States v. Williams, 934 F.2d 847, 849 (7th Cir.1991)). As we have previously stated:
A trial judge develops an intuitive sense for evaluating the actions played out in the courtroom. An evaluation — such as determining credibility — is often difficult to make from reviewing a written transcript (or even viewing a video replay). It is the trial judge’s sensory perceptions of what occurs during the course of a case, combined with an understanding of the bar and the public gained from experience in the community served by the court, which provides the trial judge with a unique insight [into the question of discrimination].
Id.; see also J.E.B., 511 U.S. at 158, 114 S.Ct. 1419 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (“I am less inclined to demand statistics, and more inclined to credit the perceptions of *560experienced litigators who have had money on the line.”).
Having made these observations, I concur in the majority opinion.

. See, e.g., Simmons v. Beyer, 44 F.3d 1160, 1167 (3d Cir.1995); Valdez v. People, 966 P.2d 587, 595 n. 17 (1998); Jefferson v. United States, 631 A.2d 13, 23 n. 7 (D.C.1993) (Rogers, C.J., dissenting); State v. Duncan, 802 So.2d 533, 552 (La.2001); Stanley v. State, 313 Md. 50, 542 A.2d 1267, 1277 n. 11 (1988); Mack v. State, 650 So.2d 1289, 1298 (Miss.1994); State v. King, 353 N.C. 457, 546 S.E.2d 575, 586 (2001); Commonwealth v. Hill, 727 A.2d 578, 583 (1999); State v. Evans, 100 Wash.App. 757, 998 P.2d 373, 381 (2000).

. See, e.g., United States v. Marin, 7 F.3d 679, 686 n. 4 (7th Cir.1993); United States v. Causey, 185 F.3d 407, 412-13 (5th Cir.1999); Mack, 650 So.2d at 1298; see also Georgia v. McCollum, 505 U.S. 42, 60-61, 112 S.Ct. 2348, 120 L.Ed.2d 33 (1992) (Thomas, L, concurring).
Indeed, some social science research indicates that black jurors are, in fact, more likely than members of other races to convict black defendants in cases involving black victims. See, e.g., D.C. Ugwuegbu, Racial and Evidential Factors in Juror Attribution of Legal Responsibility, 15 J.Exptl.Soc.Psych. 133 (1979); M. Miller & J. Hewitt, Conviction of a Defendant as a Function of Juror-Victim Racial Similarity, 105 J.Soc.Psych. 159 (1978); see also C. Lee, Race and the Victim, 73 Chi.-Kent L.Rev 533, 545-46 (1998); D.A. Clay, Race and Perception in the Courtroom, 67 Tul. L.Rev 2335, 2353 (1993). Because no rational prosecutor would strike venirepersons who he believes are sympathetic to his case, it is reasonable for a trial judge to believe that a prosecutor would not strike black venireper-sons in cases involving a black defendant and a black victim.