Court Opinion

ID: 9661659
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:45:55.194291+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:31.915605
License: Public Domain

McANULTY, Justice,
Opinion Concurring in Part, and Dissenting in Part.
While I concur in the other parts of the majority opinion, I respectfully dissent as to the peremptory strike of Juror 764. While we are to afford trial courts deference in their determination of the issue of discriminatory intent, I believe the trial court did not effectively weigh whether the reason offered was pretextual. In the third phase of the Batson v. Kentucky analysis, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), the trial court has the duty to weigh the reason proffered as it would any fact in issue to determine if purposeful discrimination has been shown. Washington v. Commonwealth, 84 S.W.3d 376, 379 (Ky.2000). Defense counsel pointed out that the reason proffered by the Commonwealth was not non-discriminatory.
In this case the trial court informed counsel that they needed to discuss their strikes. The Commonwealth Attorney’s gave as his reason for striking Juror 764: “She lives on Ward Drive. Our experience is that’s a high crime area. Whether she said she was fearful or not, I think that this puts her in a tight spot, so I struck her. Thought it would affect her.” The Commonwealth’s Attorney finished detailing his peremptory strikes, and informed *696defense counsel that four of his nine strikes were African-American jurors. Defense counsel then stated, “We struck one because she lives on Ward Drive.” The Commonwealth’s Attorney responded affirmatively. Defense counsel stated, “I don’t think that’s a good enough reason for that one.” The court interjected, “You just have to articulate a non-discriminatory reason. And I don’t think we can second guess trial strategy. He thinks she lives in an area ...” Defense counsel interrupted, ‘What I’m saying is that I don’t think that’s a non-discriminatory reason, the fact that she lives on Ward Drive. Any of these people might live in a crime area or anything like that. We don’t know whether any one of them live in a crime area.” The Commonwealth’s Attorney started to assert his knowledge of the Ward Drive area, when the trial court stated, “I’m overruling your objection.”
I would find the trial court’s determination clearly erroneous. I believe courts need to pay substantially greater attention to whether the mere claim that a person lives in a high crime area is being used as a pretext for discrimination against blacks in jury selection. I take issue with that justification as race-neutral in this case because it was unconvincing in three ways.
First, the prosecutor in this case offered no justification for why living in a high crime area should have any bearing on serving as a juror. Citizens who live in high crime areas can have just as much, if not more, interest in sitting on panels in criminal cases as jurors who experience no crime in their neighborhoods. It is stereotypical to assume that those who live in high crime areas are more likely to condone bad acts. Particularly is this true when attitudes can be explored in voir dire rather than assumed.
If conducted properly, voir dire can inform litigants about potential jurors, making reliance upon stereotypical and pejorative notions about a particular gender or race both unnecessary and unwise. Voir dire provides a means of discovering actual or implied bias and a firmer basis upon which the parties may exercise their peremptory challenges intelligently.
J.E.B. v. Alabama ex rel. T.B., 511 U.S. 127, 143-144, 114 S.Ct. 1419, 1429, 128 L.Ed.2d 89 (1994). The residence of a potential juror in a high crime area is not persuasive on its own. There was no attempt by the prosecutor to tie the reason for the peremptory strike to the facts of this case. The prosecutor must “articulate a neutral explanation related to the particular case to be tried.” Batson, 476 U.S. at 98, 106 S.Ct. at 1724, 90 L.Ed.2d at 88 (emphasis supplied). The prosecutor did not assert that the area in which the juror lived was the same area in which the crime in this case occurred. Further, there was no suggestion that the juror had any involvement in criminal activity. This basis does not bear up under reasonable scrutiny, and thus courts should be wary as to whether it is being used as pretext.
Second, there is the inference that the prosecutor’s strike is beneficial to the juror because she needed protection from possible retaliation because of living in a high crime area. The majority cites United States v. Uwaezhoke, 995 F.2d 388, 394 (3rd Cir.1993), for the proposition that the prosecutor may believe that the juror may fear retaliation for her verdict. (Opinion at p. 16) Of course, there will be instances where this is so. But it is not the job of peremptory strikes to provide for this. To begin with, this subject should be explored in voir dire rather than guessed at or assumed. .Then, it is for the court or for the parties to use their strikes for cause to avoid seating a juror in a particular case who feels threatened. In this case, the *697juror never expressed reservations about sitting on the jury. The prosecutor asked a general question about whether any of the jurors had any fear about sitting on a murder case, to which juror 764 made no response. The prosecutor did not explore juror 764’s feelings about serving on the case and again never established that the area where the juror lived had any connection to the crime in the case at bar.
Third, merely accepting high-crime neighborhood as a race-neutral reason for a strike ignores African-American housing patterns, particularly in our Commonwealth’s largest cities. This creates the opportunity for the mere assertion that the juror lives in a high crime area to draw more black juror candidates into an effective exclusion from juries. The prosecutor must present a comprehensible reason in the second step of the Batson inquiry, and that explanation need not be “persuasive, or even plausible” so long as the reason is not inherently discriminatory. Purkett v. Elem, 514 U.S. 765, 767-768, 115 S.Ct. 1769, 131 L.Ed.2d 884 (1995). I believe in some circumstances, merely citing a neighborhood in which the juror lives will represent purposeful discrimination due to the African-American housing pattern of that community. For all of these reasons, I believe that it was clearly erroneous for the court to accept the explanation for the strike as race-neutral. Our Court and the trial courts of this Commonwealth should scrutinize explanations for peremptory strikes based on neighborhood alone.
LAMBERT, C.J., joins in this opinion.