Court Opinion

ID: 9609548
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:28:22.681608+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:52:39.999392
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HASSELL,
dissenting.
I dissent because the prosecutor exercised one of his peremptory strikes to remove an African-American from the venire on the bases of race and religion. Racial and religious discrimination are repugnant to the laws and morals of any democratic society, and such discrimination should never be countenanced by the judiciary.
I believe that the reasons advanced by the prosecutor for removing William Johnson, an African-American, from the venire are pretextual and that the prosecutor exercised his peremptory strike in a racially discriminatory manner. The prosecutor stated that he exercised his peremptory strike to remove Johnson from the venire because Johnson is a nursing assistant, and he was wearing a visible religious symbol, a crucifix. However, the prosecutor did not remove from the venire a Caucasian female, Ruby Rhoads,** who is an occupational therapy aide. Both Johnson and Rhoads are employed in health-related professions, and the only distinctions between Johnson and Rhoads are that Johnson is an African-American who was wearing a crucifix.
At trial, the prosecutor stated that:
[Johnson was] wearing a crucifix in front of his clothing and [it was] dangling around. A silver crucifix about 2 inches in size. *464Obviously, he has very religious affiliations. He may be, once again, more sympathetic than these other jury members who I can’t see any crucifixes dangling on them. It’s a consideration, whenever you ask a jury member to incarcerate anybody.
On brief, the Commonwealth asserts that “[t]he prosecutor believed that Johnson, because of his occupation and religious beliefs, might be more sympathetic to the defendant, particularly with respect to incarceration.” In its opinion, the majority states:
The Commonwealth expressed its concern over jurors perceived to be sympathetic to persons facing possible incarceration. Acting on this concern, the Commonwealth struck Johnson, whose employment and visible display of a religious symbol reinforced the perception of such sympathy. This combination of factors distinguished Johnson from the other members of the venire.
I find the majority’s explanation very troublesome. As stated previously, Johnson’s employment did not and could not distinguish him from Rhoads, and the majority tries to gloss over this significant point. As I read the majority’s explanation, a Christian who wears a cross, a Jew who wears a Star of David or a yarmulke, or a Muslim who wears a crescent and star, may be removed from a jury and, thereby, discriminated against on the basis of religion.
The majority’s conclusion, which approves the practice of religious discrimination in our courts, contravenes the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. See Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah,_U.S._,_, 113 S. Ct. 2217, 2226-27 (1993). Furthermore, the majority’s legal conclusion violates Article I, § 16 of the Constitution of Virginia, which guarantees the free exercise of religion, and violates Article I, § 11 of the Constitution of Virginia, which prohibits governmental discrimination on the basis of religious conviction or race.
Religious discrimination is just as abhorrent as discrimination based upon race or gender, and, quite candidly, I am at a loss to explain or understand the majority’s rationale. Certainly, the Supreme Court of Virginia ought not condone religious discrimination practiced in the courts of this Commonwealth, particularly in light of Virginia’s historical role in the development of the constitutional right of free exercise of religion.

 There appears to be some confusion in the record regarding the correct spelling for this name. In the appendix and in the unpublished opinion of the Court of Appeals, her name appears as Ruby Rhoads. However, the record contains a list of names on a yellow sheet of paper, and, on that list, her name appears as Ruby Rhodes.