Court Opinion

ID: 9857889
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:05:45.094575+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:47:29.908715
License: Public Domain

TEAGUE, Judge,
concurring.
I write because I have the same fear that Judge Clinton appears to have, see the concurring opinion that he filed in this cause, that the majority opinion might be thought of as the “be all” in this area of the law. It is not, and given how the present arch-conservative majority of the Supreme Court of the United States has been operating in recent times, it will not soon be “the all” in this area of the law.
In this instance, given what this Court had stated and held in the past, regarding a prosecuting attorney exercising his peremptory strikes on members of a minority race, or for that matter exercising peremptory strikes on individuals of the same race as the defendant, and what the Supreme Court held in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), it is necessary for this Court to be in lockstep with that decision of the Supreme Court. See the Supremacy Clause found in Art. Ill of the Federal Constitution.
In Batson, the Supreme Court held that the equal protection clause of the Federal Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment would be violated, under certain circumstances, by a prosecuting attorney’s use of peremptory challenges to exclude black potential jurors from a black defendant’s pet-it jury. For purposes of Texas law, the Supreme Court’s decision of Batson v. Kentucky was a clear break from the past, and announced a new rule of law. Also see Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989), and Tompkins v. State, 774 S.W.2d 195, 199-200 (Tex.Cr.App.1987).
The Supreme Court has now held, see Holland v. Illinois, 493 U.S. -, 110 S.Ct. 803, 107 L.Ed.2d 905 (1990), that a prosecuting attorney’s exercise of his peremptory strikes to exclude all black potential jurors from a Caucasian’s petit jury, or to deprive a Caucasian defendant of a representative cross section of his community, which might include black potential jurors, did not violate the defendant’s right under the Sixth Amendment to the Federal Constitution to trial by an impartial jury.
In this cause, appellant complained in the following manner about the prosecuting attorney’s use of his peremptory strikes on black prospective jurors: “This practice amounts to the blatant emascalation of Craig Wayne Seubert’s constitutional right to a trial by a jury of his peers as guaranteed by the sixth amendment of the constitution of the United States of America. Any accused citizen is entitled by constitutional guarantee to a trial by jury of his peers representative of a cross-section of the community in which he resides. The State has denied Craig Wayne Seubert his constitutional guarantee.”
The record reflects that a hearing was held on appellant’s motion to disqualify the jury as seated, after which the trial judge denied the motion. Appellant did not raise at the hearing the issue whether appellant, a Caucasian, had standing under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986) to challenge a prosecuting attorney’s removal of black prospective jurors under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. That issue will apparently be decided in the Supreme Court’s case of Powers v. Ohio, — U.S. -, 110 S.Ct. 1521, 108 L.Ed.2d 761 *72(1990), in which certiorari has been granted to decide the following question: “Does a white criminal defendant have standing, under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), to challenge prosecution’s removal of black prospective jurors?” See — U.S. -, 110 S.Ct. 1521.
The following has been suggested: In Holland, at least “five members of the Supreme Court tipped their hands on an issue not decided in that cause by stating, either implicitly or expressly, that such a defendant would be able to make a claim under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, despite contrary language in Batson, that seems to require racial identity between the defendant and the excluded juror.” 46 CrL 2065. In Holland, the majority opinion emphasized that the petitioner did not seek in his petition for certiorari review of the denial by the trial court of his Equal Protection Clause claim, which the Supreme Court of Illinois had rejected, and further emphasized that the grant of certiorari was limited to the Sixth Amendment question. — U.S. at -, fn. 3, 110 S.Ct. at 811, fn. 3, 107 L.Ed.2d at 921, fn. 3.
Thus, to the extent that the majority opinion by Presiding Judge McCormick in this cause holds that as a matter of Federal Constitutional Law appellant “loses” under Holland, I concur in the result reached, namely, that it is necessary to reverse the judgment of the court of appeals because the court of appeals’ decision is contrary to what the Supreme Court held in Holland v. Illinois. However, assuming arguendo that the five members of the Supreme Court who “tipped their hands” in Holland do not go against what they either implicitly or expressly stated in Holland, had appellant raised in the trial court the issue, whether he had standing under Batson v. Kentucky and the Fourteenth Amendment to challenge the prosecuting attorney’s removal of black prospective jurors on equal protection grounds, it should be obvious to almost anyone that had the court of appeals written on that issue, rather than the one they did, and decided the issue in appellant’s favor, the judgment of the court of appeals would have to be affirmed by this Court.
Therefore, I concur.