People v. Cannon

505 N.E.2d 1272, 153 Ill. App. 3d 245, 106 Ill. Dec. 481, 1987 Ill. App. LEXIS 2158
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedMarch 13, 1987
DocketNo. 83—2439
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 505 N.E.2d 1272 (People v. Cannon) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Cannon, 505 N.E.2d 1272, 153 Ill. App. 3d 245, 106 Ill. Dec. 481, 1987 Ill. App. LEXIS 2158 (Ill. Ct. App. 1987).

Opinion

JUSTICE PINCHAM

delivered the opinion of the court:

Defendant was charged with the offenses of robbery, residential burglary, aggravated battery, and home invasion. He was tried by a jury in the circuit court of Cook County and found guilty of robbery and residential burglary (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1985, ch. 38, pars. 18 — 1, 19— 3) and not guilty of the remaining charges. He was sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment in the Illinois Department of Corrections on the residential-burglary conviction. On this appeal, defendant contends that he was denied his constitutional rights to a fair trial and to be tried by an impartial jury because the State used its peremptory challenges to exclude all black citizens from his jury.

The record reveals that during the selection of the first panel of four jurors, the State exercised four peremptory challenges, one of which was against a white citizen. At the conclusion of the selection of the first panel, the defendant’s attorney moved for a mistrial in the following language:

“Your honor, at this time I will make a formal motion for a mistrial, based upon the State’s misuse of their challenges to the jury. [T]he State has used *** four peremptory challenges, *** three out of those four persons were Black; and, Judge, there is no other reason for any one of those jurors to have been excluded except for the fact that they were Black.
And there was nothing in their backgrounds that was adverse to any kind of interest, at least in the information that I had heard, unless the State has something to the contrary.
And the State is once again attempting at this time to deprive the Defendant of his Fifth, Sixth, and *** Fourteenth Amendment Rights under the United States Constitution.
* * *
And I move to declare a mistrial.
* * *
I think that the State *** [is] using their peremptory challenges primarily, not only primarily, but solely for the purpose of excluding Blacks.”

The assistant State’s Attorney responded that the State was not engaged in the systematic exclusion of blacks and pointed out that the victim in the case was a black woman.

The trial judge ruled:

“I am of the opinion that the Supreme Court of Illinois has now definitively said that the State has the unfettered right to use its peremptory challenges in any fashion that the State’s Attorney sees fit, and that they are not to be required to even state why, which is nothing new; but if anything is clear, it seems to me it is the law that the right to peremptory chailenges is an unfettered right. So your motion is denied.”

After the 12 jurors and two alternate jurors were selected and sworn, the defendant’s attorney made another motion for a mistrial in the following language:

“I will once again be asking for a Mis-trial. I would like the record to reflect that of other six peremptories *** that the State has executed today, that five of them have been against Black persons ***.
The only Black person the State accepted as a jury member was one who *** is seated as an alternate.
* * *
I think that this is a very blatant example of racial discrimination on its face, and if this Court has no power to actually enjoin the State from participating in these kinds of practices, we may as well forget about the Fourteenth Amendment and the Fifth Amendment and the Sixth Amendment.
I think that this Court under such blatant, obvious, practices engaged in by the State had not only the right, and the duty, but the obligation to pursue a proper remedy *** this Court can, as a matter of fact, declare a Mis-trial when it becomes obvious that the State is, as a matter of fact, trying to prevent the Defendant from getting a fair trial ***.
[I]n this case, Judge, it is not only the case of racial discrimination but they are using their peremptory challenges by excluding people of the Defendant’s race *** in order to prevent the Defendant from getting a fair trial.
* * *
[T]he State’s ability *** to execute certain peremptory challenges here goes to the entire aspect whether this man simply because of the fact he is a Black man and even more important is as to how our own criminal justice system is viewed in toto by the community.
If this kind of a practice — if a Black man or a Black woman, or any Black person can step into this courtroom and say that simply because of the fact that you are Black you cannot serve impartially on this jury, then, as a matter of fact, we might as well all forget about even being here. We might as well all forget about saying there was such a thing as the Fourteenth Amendment in operation. ***.
[T]he State had no good cause to excuse any of those Black people who they did excuse except for the fact that they were Black.
* * *
Judge, we ask that your Honor *** grant our motion for a Mis-trial because of the blatant activity and intentional activity engaged in by the State.”

The assistant State’s Attorney replied that “there has been no systematic exclusion of Blacks in this case.” The trial judge ruled that the State had a right to exercise a certain number of peremptory challenges in a criminal case, that “the Supreme Court has now said that the word ‘peremptory’ means that they need not give any kind of basis for the exercise of a peremptory challenge,” and denied the motion for a mistrial.

The jury was selected in this case on September 6, 1983, evidence was presented on September 7 and 8, 1983, and on the last date the jury returned its guilty verdicts. The defendant was sentenced on October 7,1983.

On April 30, 1986, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Batson v. Kentucky (1986), 476 U.S. 79, 90 L. Ed. 2d 69, 106 S. Ct. 1712. In Batson, the prosecutor exercised four peremptory challenges against the four blacks on the venire. An all white jury was selected. The defendant’s attorney asked that the jury be discharged on the ground that the prosecutor’s exercise of the four challenges against the blacks violated the defendant’s rights under the sixth and fourteenth amendments to a jury selected from a cross-section of the community and under the fourteenth amendment to equal protection of the laws.

The Supreme Court held in Batson that the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment prohibits the State from excluding members of a defendant’s race from the jury venire on account of race or because of the false assumption that members of his race as a group are not qualified to serve as jurors.

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Related

People v. Cannon
505 N.E.2d 1272 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1987)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
505 N.E.2d 1272, 153 Ill. App. 3d 245, 106 Ill. Dec. 481, 1987 Ill. App. LEXIS 2158, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-cannon-illappct-1987.