In Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prevents prosecutors in criminal cases from exercising peremptory challenges to excuse prospective jurors solely on account of their race. As illustrated by State v. Campbell COA18-998-2, filed 21 July 2020, application of that 1986 decision is not easy.
Campbell was charged with first-degree murder but apparently his trial was not tried capitally (recordation of jury selection is not required in non-capital cases). Defense counsel filed a pretrial motion for complete recordation of all proceedings but advised the court that the motion did not include jury selection. The motion was allowed.
During the selection of alternate jurors (which usually happens after a panel of twelve has been through voir dire and approved by both sides), defense counsel raised a Batson objection to peremptory challenges that the State had already exercised. At that point, the State had exercised four such challenges, three of which were against African-Americans.
A Batson analysis is a three-step burden-shifting process. First, the defendant must establish a prima facie case that the peremptory challenge was exercised on the basis of race. If this step is satisfied, the prosecutor then has the burden of offering a race-neutral explanation to rebut the prima facie case. Third, the court must determine whether the defendant has proven purposeful discrimination.
The court initially denied defendant’s Batson motion. However, the court shortly thereafter advised the parties that while it did not believe a prima facie case of discrimination had been established, the court in its discretion was ordering the State to provide a race-neutral basis for each of the African-American prospective jurors it had excused peremptorily. After hearing the State’s rationale for each, the court observed that it still found no prima facie showing of a Batson violation by the prosecutor. The trial proceeded and the jury convicted Campbell of first-degree murder but acquitted him of other related offenses.
On appeal, the Court of Appeals first denied the State’s motion to dismiss, which was premised on the fact that jury selection had not been recorded, finding that the record was “minimally sufficient” to allow appellate review. The Court then turned to the merits of defendant’s Batson argument.
The majority noted that, because the trial court had found that defendant had not established a prima facie Batson claim and thus had not satisfied the first prong of a Batson challenge, the reasons later offered by the State were immaterial. State v. Campbell, __ N.C. App. __, 838 S.E.2d 660 (2020).
The majority then undertook a substantive analysis of the trial court’s order that found the defendant failed to establish a prima facie claim. The majority observed that the sparse record revealed that the defendant was African-American but left unknown the race of the victim, of key witnesses, and of jurors who were not challenged. In the absence of this and other key information, the majority gave deference to the trial court’s orders concerning jury selection and found no error, citing State v. Dickens, 346 N.C. 26, 42, 484 S.E.2d 553, 561 (1997).
Judge Hampson dissented. While noting the deficiencies in the record, the dissent cited State v. Barden, 356 N.C. 316, 572 S.E.2d 108 (2002), for the proposition that a numerical analysis of the race of both the challenged and seated jurors is useful for determining whether a prima facie showing has been made. The dissent would have remanded the matter to the trial court for findings of fact and, if necessary, evidentiary proceedings to supplement the record sufficiently to allow meaningful appellate review.
The Supreme Court of North Carolina allowed certiorari. On 5 June 2020, that Court remanded the matter to the Court of Appeals for reconsideration in light of State v. Hobbs, __ N.C. __, 841 S.E.2d 492 (2020) and State v. Bennett, __ N.C.__, 843 S.E.2d 222 (2020), both of which applied Batson. State v. Campbell, __ N.C. __, 842 S.E.2d 601 (2020).
In Hobbs, the Supremes held that if the State provides reasons for its challenges and the trial court rules on those reasons, the question of whether the defendant initially established a prima facie case of discrimination becomes moot. The Supremes recited a non-exclusive list of factors a defendant may present to support a Batson claim and noted that the trial court should compare responses given by different prospective jurors and should consider historical evidence of discrimination.
In Bennett, the Supremes noted that the racial...
