Court Opinion

ID: 9560372
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:48:22.596398+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:12:52.915156
License: Public Domain

Finney, Chief Justice:
*127I agree appellant’s conviction should be affirmed, but unlike the majority I would not alter our well-settled Batson procedure to conform to the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Purkett v. Elem, — U.S. —, 115 S.Ct. 1769, 131 L.Ed. (2d) 834 (1995). In my opinion, if a party offers “implausible” or “fantastic” explanations for its challenged strikes, the Bat-son motion should be granted at that point. Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary defines implausible as “provoking disbelief’ and fantastic as “based on fantasy: not real.” I would not require the party asserting the Batson challenge to demonstrate disparate treatment where the explanation given is patently unbelievable. For this reason, I concur only in the result here.