Winfield v. Commonwealth

421 S.E.2d 468, 14 Va. App. 1049, 9 Va. Law Rep. 138, 1992 Va. App. LEXIS 220

• Court: Court of Appeals of Virginia
• Decided: August 18, 1992
• Docket: Record No. 0959-88-2
• Status: Published

Opinions

UPON REHEARING EN BANC

Opinion

In Winfield v. Commonwealth, 12 Va. App. 446, 404 S.E.2d 398 (1991), a panel of the Court affirmed the judgment of the trial court that the Commonwealth’s Attorney satisfied the requirements of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), in explaining his exercise of peremptory strikes against four black veniremen. After the release of our opinion, the Supreme Court decided Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. 352 (1991), explaining the standard of appellate review of a trial court ruling on a Batson challenge. The court said:

[T]he trial court’s decision on the ultimate question of discriminatory intent represents a finding of fact of the sort accorded great deference on appeal.

Id. at 1868.

Deference to trial court findings on the issue of discriminatory intent makes particular sense in this context because, as we noted in Batson, the finding will “largely turn on evaluation of credibility.” In the typical peremptory challenge inquiry, the decisive question will be whether counsel’s race-neutral explanation for a peremptory challenge should be believed. There will seldom be much evidence bearing on that issue, and the best evidence often will be the demeanor of the attorney who exercises the challenge. As with the state of mind of a juror, evaluation of the prosecutor’s state of mind based on.demeanor and credibility lies “peculiarly within a trial judge’s province.”

Id. at 1869 (citations omitted).

[W]e decline to overturn the state trial court’s finding on the issue of discriminatory intent unless convinced that its determination was clearly erroneous. . . . “[Wjhere there are two permissible views of the evidence, the factfinder’s choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous.”

Id. at 1871-72 (citations omitted).

For the reasons stated in the panel’s majority opinion, and upon the further authority of Hernandez, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed and the stay of this Court’s April 30, 1991 mandate is lifted.

Affirmed.