Court Opinion

ID: 9664584
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:21:52.979158+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:07.413489
License: Public Domain

PRICE, Judge,
concurring.
I concur with the result and analysis stated in the majority opinion, as it pertains to the facts of the case at hand. However, the facts of the case at hand and, therefore, the opinion as well, may not reflect the full impact of Batson and its progeny.1
Although each of the Batson cases decided by the United States Supreme Court dealt with attempts to exclude African-*942Americans from service on petit juries, the language, logic, and spirit of the cases appear broader. As was most recently stated in Georgia v. McCollum, — U.S. -, 112 S.Ct. 2348, 120 L.Ed.2d 33 (1992):
This Court firmly has rejected the view that assumptions of partiality based on race provide a legitimate basis for disqualifying a person as an impartial juror. As this Court stated just last Term in Powers, “[w]e may not accept as a defense to racial discrimination the very stereotype the law condemns.” 499 U.S., at -, 111 S.Ct., at 1370. “In our heterogeneous society policy as well as constitutional considerations militate against the divisive assumption — as a per se rule — that justice in a court of law may turn upon the pigmentation of skin, the accident of birth, or the choice of religion.” Ristaino v. Ross, 424 U.S. 589, 596, n. 8, 96 S.Ct. 1017, 1021, n. 8, 47 L.Ed.2d 258 (1976). We therefore reaffirm today that the exercise of a peremptory challenge must not be based on either the race of the juror or the racial stereotypes held by the party. (Emphasis supplied.)
In Powers, — U.S. at -, 111 S.Ct. at 1370, the Supreme Court emphasized the rights of individuals to serve on petit juries. It stated:
We hold that the Equal Protection Clause prohibits a prosecutor from using the State’s peremptory challenges to exclude otherwise qualified and unbiased persons from the petit jury solely by reason of their race, a practice that forecloses a significant opportunity to participate in civic life. An individual juror does not have a right to sit on any particular petit jury, but he or she does possess the right not to be excluded from one on account of race. (Emphasis supplied.)
The elevated protection required by these cases of the rights of individuals to serve as jurors may extend beyond racial discrimination to religious, gender-based, or ethnic discrimination as well, either under the United States or the Missouri Constitutions. Interestingly, the Missouri Constitution may require greater protection of the right of an individual to serve on a petit jury than does the United States Constitution.
While our Missouri Constitution includes similar equal protection language to that in the United States Constitution, stating: “that all persons are created equal and are entitled to equal rights and opportunity under the law;” art. I, § 2, it provides further and more specific rights to individuals regarding jury service. Article I, § 5, provides “that no person shall on account of his religious persuasion or belief ... be disqualified from testifying or serving as a juror,” and art. I, § 22(b), provides that, “no citizen shall be disqualified from jury service because of sex, ...”.2
Thus, whether Batson, Powers, Edmon-son and McCollum directly prohibit the use of peremptory strikes based upon religion or sex, they certainly suggest such a result when coupled with Missouri’s Constitution.
Although such prohibitions certainly may require a revision of our procedures regarding peremptory strikes, they need not cause the abolishment of peremptory strikes. The long tradition and value of peremptory strikes to our judicial process was duly noted in Swain v. State of Alabama, 380 U.S. 202, 211-221, 85 S.Ct. 824, 831-836, 13 L.Ed.2d 759 (1965), and is provided for in Missouri by statute, § 494.480, RSMo. The survival of this procedure in a constitutionally permissible manner need be neither offensive nor unduly burdensome to our courts and lawyers. Whatever complications that may result are a small price to make citizen participation in our judicial process free from the taint of racial, gender-based, religious, or ethnic discrimination. The trial lawyer may still continue to represent his or her client in the jury selection process by the use of per*943emptory strikes, when cause does not exist. Such representation simply does not justify unconstitutional discrimination.
Proper jurisprudence dictates that our present ruling be limited to the facts before us. Without the benefit of focused briefing and argument, it is folly now to attempt to define the perimeters of Batson and its progeny. Skillful practitioners, however, will bear in mind that these perimeters have not been finally set.

. Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986); Powers v. Ohio, — U.S. -, 111 S.Ct. 1364, 113 L.Ed.2d 411 (1991); Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., Inc., — U.S. -, 111 S.Ct. 2077, 114 L.Ed.2d 660 (1991); and Georgia v. McCollum, — U.S. -, 112 S.Ct. 2348, 120 L.Ed.2d 33 (1992).

. Article I, § 22(b), further provides that, "but the court shall excuse any woman who requests exemption therefrom before being sworn as a juror.” This practice was declared to result in a systematic exclusion of women violating the Constitution's fair cross-section requirement in Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357, 99 S.Ct. 664, 58 L.Ed.2d 579 (1979).