Easter v. State

740 S.W.2d 107, 1987 Tex. App. LEXIS 8769
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 10, 1987
Docket07-87-0073-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 740 S.W.2d 107 (Easter v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Easter v. State, 740 S.W.2d 107, 1987 Tex. App. LEXIS 8769 (Tex. Ct. App. 1987).

Opinion

BOYD, Justice.

Appellant Hulon Javance Easter brings this appeal from his conviction of the offense of burglary of a habitation and the consequent court-assessed punishment of seventy-five years confinement in the Department of Corrections. In attacking his conviction, appellant raises two points of error. He says the trial court erred in (1) empaneling a jury, since the prosecutor had used peremptory strikes in a racially discriminatory manner and the defense was not allowed to question the prosecution as to its reasons for striking certain minority jurors, and (2) refusing to consider a prior plea bargain offered by the district attorney’s office and accepted by appellant. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

In argument under his first point, appellant says that the prosecution used peremptory challenges to strike every Mexican-American on the jury panel. The record shows that he objected to this action on the grounds that it denied him an effective cross-representation of the community, therefore, denying him a trial before a jury of his peers. On that basis alone, he then moved for a hearing to explore the basis of the prosecution’s strikes of the Mexican-Americans. This motion was overruled by the trial court, giving rise to this 'appeal.

In support of his proposition, appellant invokes the standard set out by the United States Supreme Court in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed. 2d 69 (1986). In that connection, appellant does not challenge the make-up of the jury panel from which the trial jury was selected; rather, his challenge is specifically limited to the manner in which the prosecution used its peremptory strikes in the selection of the trial jury.

We must note that it is appellant’s burden to submit a proper record to support his appellate contentions. Tex.R.App.P. 50(d). Other than the conclusion stated in appellant’s objection and in his brief, there is nothing in the record, such as the State’s strike list, to support his contention that the State actually did strike all Mexican-Americans on the jury list. It is well established that this Court cannot accept as fact allegations or assertions in an appellant’s brief that are not supported by the record. Beck v. State, 573 S.W.2d 786, 788 (Tex.Crim.App.1978).

However, although appellant is black and the potential jurors assertedly struck are of another cognizable racial group, as noted above, it is his position that under the Court’s standard explicated in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69, this cause must be remanded for new trial. In the Batson case, the Court reiterated its prior observation that the State’s purposeful or deliberate denial of jury participation to black persons simply because of their race violated the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. Id. 476 U.S. at 84, 106 S.Ct. at 1716, 90 L.Ed.2d at 79.

En route to its decision, the Batson Court reiterated the general proposition that “[a]s in any equal protection case, the ‘burden is, of course’ on the defendant who alleges discriminatory selection of the ve-nire ‘to prove the existence of .purposeful discrimination.’ ” Id. 476 U.S. at 93, 106 S.Ct. at 1721, 90 L.Ed.2d at 85. It went on to recognize the previously established rule that a defendant alleging that members of his race have been impermissibly excluded may make out the requisite prima facie case by showing that the totality of the relevant facts gives rise to an inference of discriminatory purpose and, such a showing may be made by consideration of the surrounding facts concerning the jury selection in his particular case (emphasis add *109 ed). Id. at 94, 106 S.Ct. at 1721-22, 90 L.Ed.2d at 86-87. When a prima facie showing has been made by an appellant, the burden then shifts to the State to come forward with a neutral explanation for challenging such jurors. Id. at 97, 106 S.Ct. at 1723, 90 L.Ed.2d at 88.

It is in that event that the court is required to hold a hearing of the type sought by this appellant. Absent such a showing, the Court expressly recognized the “important position” the peremptory challenge occupies in our trial procedures and the continued viability of the use of such challenges absent a pattern of racial discrimination against a defendant’s racial group. Id. at 98-99,106 S.Ct. at 1724, 90 L.Ed.2d at 89.

The Court’s specific holding, as explicated by our Court of Criminal Appeals in Keeton v. State, 724 S.W.2d 58 (Tex.Crim. App.1987), said that a defendant might satisfy the necessity for a prima facie showing of racial discrimination denying him equal protection by showing that:

1. he was a member of a cognizable racial group;
2. the prosecutor had exercised peremptory challenges to remove from the ve-nire members of the defendant’s race ... and
3. the facts and any other relevant circumstances raise an inference that the prosecutor used peremptory challenges to exclude the venireman on account of their race (emphasis added).

Id. at 65.

It is also worthy of note that the Batson Court specifically reiterated that “we have never held that the Sixth Amendment requires that ‘petit juries actually chosen must mirror the community and reflect the various distinctive groups in the population’ ” because, it said, “it would be impossible to apply such a concept of proportional representation to the petit jury in view of the heterogeneous nature of our society.” 476 U.S. at 85, n. 6, 106 S.Ct. at 1717 n. 6, 90 L.Ed.2d at 80, n. 6.

Since appellant has not met the requisite of showing that the assertedly excluded jurors were of his own race, the Batson doctrine does not aid him in making a prima facie showing of racial discrimination. Moreover, assuming, arguendo, that the State did strike all Mexican-American jurors on the jury list, there is nothing in the record sufficient to meet appellant’s necessary burden of showing that such an exclusion of another and separately cognizable racial group was such purposeful discrimination on the part of the State as to deprive him of any Sixth Amendment right. Appellant’s first point is overruled.

As shown above, in his second point, appellant says the court erred in refusing to consider a plea bargain previously offered by the District Attorney’s office and accepted by the defendant. The record reveals that appellant initially entered a plea of not guilty to the charge against him. Later, after the completion of the State’s evidence, appellant sought to withdraw his plea of not guilty and enter a plea of guilty with a request to the court to “follow the plea bargain in this case” which, he said, he had accepted.

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Bluebook (online)
740 S.W.2d 107, 1987 Tex. App. LEXIS 8769, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/easter-v-state-texapp-1987.