Court Opinion

ID: 9739048
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:07:48.97151+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:38:44.633478
License: Public Domain

SCHLEGEL, Judge
(dissenting).
I certainly applaud the conclusion of the majority in its determination that the defendant has met the burden of showing a pattern in Black Hawk County of excluding blacks from criminal jury service. I agree that the showing is in accord with the holding in Garrett v. Morris, 815 F.2d 509 (8th Cir.1987), where the court held that the presumption that the prosecutor is using the State’s challenges to obtain a fair and impartial jury may be overcome “[b]y showing that the prosecution has systematically excluded blacks from petit juries over a period of time.” Id. 380 U.S. at 223-24, 85 S.Ct. at 837-838, 13 L.Ed.2d 774-775.
After taking this courageous stand, however, the majority applies the well-known test of State v. Miles, 344 N.W.2d 231, 233-34, and Washington v. Strickland, 466 U.S. 668, 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2068, 80 L.Ed.2d 674, 698 (1984), for the proposition that even if the defendant’s counsel was wrong in failing to make the objection to the jury panel, the defendant has failed to show there is a reasonable probability the result of the proceeding would have been different. Furthermore, the majority allows the limitation of Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314, 318, 107 S.Ct. 708, 716, 93 L.Ed.2d 649, 661 (1987), to hold that the Batson doctrine cannot apply retroactively.
I submit that if, as the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69, 87-88 (1986), the effort to determine the prosecutor’s practice in all cases was too difficult, surely it is not reasonable to require the defendant to prove that had his counsel objected to the jury panel, resulting in a new and different jury, that jury would have given him anything more than a fair trial. Asking a defendant to prove that but for the error of his counsel in this type of case, he would have been acquitted is far beyond his ability. The result, then, is that if such an objection is made at trial, the defendant’s rights are preserved, whereas, if his counsel fails to raise the issue, the defendant cannot make the requisite showing and his rights are forever lost. In this type of case, the two-pronged test of Strickland is inappropriate.
In Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S.-,-, 109 S.Ct. 1060,1072-1073, 103 L.Ed.2d 334, 353 (1989), the United States Supreme Court adopted the philosophy of Justice Harlan in Mackey v. United States, 401 U.S. 667, 689, 91 S.Ct. 1160, 28 L.Ed.2d 404 (1971): “It is ‘sounder, in adjudicating ha-beas petition, generally to apply the law prevailing at the time a conviction became final than to seek to dispose of [habeas] corpus on the basis of intervening changes.’ ” He went on to identify only *778two exceptions to his general rule of nonre-troactivity for cases on collateral review (habeas corpus actions). The second exception — relevant here — is explained as follows:
A new rule should be applied retroactively if it requires the observance of “those procedures that ... are implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.” (Citation omitted.)
Teague, 489 U.S. at-, 109 S.Ct. at 1075, 103 L.Ed.2d at 356.
What is the “concept of ordered liberty” to a black person subjected to the discriminatory practice of the preemptory challenge of all black veniremen, is quite likely different than that concept of ordered liberty to a white person seated in front of an all-white jury. The need for a retroactive application of Batson is required in this case.
I note the footnote at the end of the opinion of the majority, and celebrate with the majority the history of Iowa’s leadership in the field of equal rights for all its citizens. I would continue that same leadership in this case and would grant the defendant a new trial, free from the pall of discrimination, by practices which both diminish his right to a fair trial and degrade his race.
I would reverse and remand for a new trial.