State v. Taylor

747 S.W.2d 146, 1987 Mo. App. LEXIS 3740, 1987 WL 319
Missouri Court of Appeals·Decided March 10, 1987·No. No. 51235·Published·Cited by 2 cases

Opinion

JAMES A. PUDLOWSKI, Presiding Judge.

This is an appeal by Jerry Taylor from his conviction for first degree murder, § 565.020 RSMo 1986. The conviction was entered pursuant to a jury verdict and appellant was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

As his first point on appeal, appellant alleges that the trial court erred in overruling his motion to preclude the prosecutor’s use of peremptory challenges against black venirepersons and in failing to quash the venire panel after the state struck all the black panel members. We are constrained by the United States Supreme Court’s recent holding in Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314, 107 S.Ct. 708, 93 L.Ed.2d 649 (1987) and by the subsequent order of our Supreme Court handed down on February 17, 1987, State v. Antwine, No. 677201 to remand the cause for an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the United States Supreme Court’s holding in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986) requires reversal and retrial.

[147]*147Appellant has failed to cite this court to any authority to support his allegation that the trial court erred in overruling his motion to preclude the use of peremptory challenges against black venire-persons. Racial prejudice has long been held to be an improper reason for removing a member of the venire panel. The case law is clear on that point. See Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202, 85 S.Ct. 824, 13 L.Ed.2d 759 (1965). However, so long as race was not the motivating factor, the prosecutor had the right to use his allotted number of peremptory challenges against anyone on the panel. The trial court in the case sub judice properly found that it did not have the power to limit the prosecutor’s peremptory challenges to white venireper-sons only and it so ruled. With regard to that ruling, we find no error. Appellant contends, however, that the strikes against blacks were racially motivated and that the prosecutor’s actions deprived him of his right, under the sixth and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, to have a jury selected from a fair cross-section of the community.

In 1965, in Swain v. Alabama, supra, the United States Supreme Court stated that to succeed on such a claim, a defendant had to show systematic exclusion of members of his racial group over a period of months or years. Using that standard, appellant admits that his claim must fail because he has not made the required showing. However, on April 30, 1986, after the trial of this cause, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), overruling Swain.

In Batson, the court held4hat a defendant makes a prima facie showing that peremptory strikes were used in a discriminatory fashion in violation of his fourteenth amendment rights if he demonstrates that the state, in making its peremptory challenges, struck all of the black members of the panel. Once that showing has been made, the burden shifts to the state to come forward with a neutral explanation for its strikes. If no such neutral explanation is given, the panel must be struck. Of course that was not the law in January of 1986 when appellant was tried. Recently, however, in Griffith v. Kentucky, supra, the Batson ruling was held to apply to any case, like this one, which was pending on direct review when Batson was handed down.

Appellant was tried by an all white jury. After the strikes for cause had been made, there were seven blacks left on the panel. The prosecutor, had nine peremptory challenges. He used seven of them to strike all seven of the black venirepersons. We have carefully examined both the questions asked and the answers given on voir dire and there is no indication of a completely neutral explanation for the striking of all seven of the black panelists. One of the seven was never even asked a question on voir dire, nor did she respond affirmatively to any question asked of the panel as a whole. A second panelist stated only that she had two adult children, an answer similar to that given by several white panelists who were not struck. There was no neutral explanation offered for the striking of all seven of the black venirepersons and none appears from the record.

When appellant’s counsel moved to have the panel quashed, the prosecutor stated that in striking the seven, it was “not primary or probably even secondary in my [his] consideration that they were black.” (Emphasis added). However, he offered no explanation for the strikes. On the record before us, a prima facie showing was made that appellant’s fourteenth amendment rights were violated and that showing was not refuted by the prosecutor and is not refuted by the record.

Where the record indicates that a defendant made a specific objection and made or attempted to make the record necessary to support a Batson challenge, our Supreme Court’s order in State v. Antwine, supra, handed down on February 17, 1987, indicates that the proper course of action is to remand for a hearing to determine whether a reversal and retrial is required under Batson and Griffith.

We therefore remand this cause to the trial court for the sole purpose of determin-[148]*148tag the validity of appellant’s constitutional claim in light of the Batson holding. After the hearing, the trial court is to make findings of fact and conclusions of law on the issues of whether appellant has established a prima facie case of purposeful discrimination and whether the state has rebutted this showing by presenting a neutral explanation for using its peremptory strikes to eliminate all the black members of the ve-nire panel. The trial court is ordered to certify these findings of fact and conclusions of law directly to this court, which will then take appropriate action consistent with the requirements of Batson. We will address appellant’s other two points, if necessary, at that time.

The cause is remanded for purposes of a hearing.

CRANDALL and KAROHL, JJ., concur.

APPENDIX A

STATE OF MISSOURI, Respondent, v. CALVERT LEON ANTWINE, Appellant.

No. 67720

Supreme Court of Missouri, En Banc.

February 17, 1987.

ORDER

This case was tried on August 22, 1985. Appellant was sentenced on December 13, 1985. Among his contentions on appeal, appellant argues that the trial court erred in failing to quash the petit jury impanelled because the State engaged in a systematic pattern of excluding qualified Black veniremen from the jury in violation of appellant’s Fourteenth and Sixth Amendment rights to equal protection and to a jury selected from a fair cross-section of the community.

While this case was pending on direct appeal to this Court, the United States Supreme Court decided Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), overruling Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202

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State v. Taylor, 747 S.W.2d 146, 1987 Mo. App. LEXIS 3740, 1987 WL 319 (Mo. Ct. App. 1987).

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