Court Opinion

ID: 9476039
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:46:29.015022+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:06.214354
License: Public Domain

BRIGHT, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring.
This separate concurrence is prompted by language in the majority opinion stating:
On remand, the district court is to determine whether a prima facie case of purposeful discrimination has been established by the prosecutor’s use of peremptory challenges during voir dire to strike prospective black jurors. If so found, the district court is to require the prosecutor to provide a “neutral explanation” for the peremptory strikes. The defendant must then be given the chance to rebut the proffered explanation as a pretext.
Maj. op. at 423. This language contains an internal inconsistency. If appellant George Wilson did not make a prima facie case of purposeful discrimination as shown by the record, we should affirm the conviction. But a prima facie case of discrimination was established by evidence that the government prosecutor utilized fifty percent of the challenges to remove three of the four prospective jurors. Following Batson v. Kentucky, — U.S. -, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), with that showing we are compelled to reverse and remand this case to require that the prosecutor give a neutral explanation for the peremptory strikes.
In my view, the remand in this case might read as follows:
If the District Court finds that the government’s motivation for its peremptory challenges was constitutionally improper, it shall grant [George Wilson] a new trial. If, on the other hand, it finds that the government’s motivation was not constitutionally improper, it shall reinstate the conviction, and appellant will be at liberty to file a fresh notice of appeal to seek review of the District Court’s adverse finding.1
Because the majority and I disagree on whether appellant George Wilson has already established a prima facie case, I believe that my views, as previously expressed in a dissent to the majority opinion in this case and rendered prior to the Supreme Court’s decision in Griffith v. Kentucky, — U.S. -, 107 S.Ct. 708, 93 L.Ed.2d 649 (1987), may bear upon the district court’s determination on remand. That dissenting opinion recounts the litigation in this court relating to the peremptory striking of black jurors by prosecutors, in-*424eluding cases arising in the Eastern District of Missouri. I attach this dissent as an addendum.
ADDENDUM

. This precise language comes from United States v. Jimmie L. Wilson, 815 F.2d 52, 52-53 (8th Cir.1987).