Twenty-Five Years of Batson: An Introduction to ... - University of Iowa

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1400 IOWA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 97:1393 Realizing that Swain precluded an equal protection argument based on the strikes at his trial, and “in an apparent effort to avoid inviting the Court directly to reconsider” that decision, the petitioner claimed only a deprivation of his Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment entitlement “to a jury drawn from a cross section of the community.” 54 The State sought to unmask Batson’s contention, maintaining that he was actually claiming an equal protection violation and that the Court could sustain that claim only by reconsidering Swain. 55 The Justices agreed that Batson’s challenge implicated “equal protection principles” and decided to revisit Swain, 56 departing dramatically from its premises and conclusions. Writing for the majority, Justice Powell began with Strauder’s pronouncement that a state “denies a black defendant equal protection . . . when it puts him on trial before a jury from which members of his race have been purposely excluded.” 57 Racially discriminatory exclusion violates a defendant’s equal protection right by “den[ying] him the protection that a . . . jury is intended to secure.” 58 It deprives an accused of judgment by his peers, a vital safeguard “against the arbitrary exercise of power by prosecutor or judge.” 59 Moreover, it enables officials to oppress minorities and denies defendants their right to protection against race prejudice. 60 The Batson majority observed that discriminatory exclusion also violates the excluded jurors’ rights. 61 A juror’s competence depends on his “qualifications and ability impartially to consider evidence,” not on his race. 62 Furthermore, race-based exclusion harms “the entire community” by “undermin[ing] public confidence in the fairness of our system of justice.” 63 Significantly, the Court declared that the “principles” forbidding racial discrimination in the selection of venires also extended to petit juries. 64 This extension subjected the prosecution’s peremptory challenges “to the commands” of equal protection. 65 The result was a Fourteenth Amendment 54. Id. at 84 n.4. 55. Id. 56. Id. The Court “express[ed] no view on the merits of any of petitioner’s Sixth Amendment arguments.” Id. 57. Id. at 85. 58. Id. at 86. 59. Id. 60. Id. at 86 n.8. 61. Id. at 87. 62. Id. (citing Thiel v. S. Pac. Co., 328 U.S. 217, 223–24 (1946)). 63. Id. at 87. According to the majority, race discrimination in the courtroom “is most pernicious because it is ‘a stimulant to that race prejudice which is an impediment to securing . . . equal justice’” for blacks. Id. at 87–88 (quoting Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303, 308 (1879)). 64. Id. at 88. 65. Id. at 89.
2012] TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF BATSON 1401 constraint on the principle that the government “ordinarily is entitled to exercise . . . peremptory challenges ‘for any reason at all.’” 66 Put simply, “the Equal Protection Clause forbids . . . challenge[s to] potential jurors solely on account of their race or on the assumption that black jurors as a group will be unable impartially to consider the State’s case against a black defendant.” 67 According to the Court, Swain recognized that the equal protection guarantee prevented the government from perverting peremptory challenges into a tool for denying blacks opportunities to serve. 68 The defect in that decision was procedural—it had “placed on defendants a crippling burden of proof” and had effectively “immun[ized peremptories] from constitutional scrutiny. 69 Post-Swain decisions had established “that a defendant [could] make a prima facie showing of purposeful racial discrimination in selection of the venire by relying solely on the facts . . . in his case.” 70 Proof of a pattern of discrimination was unnecessary because an individual who suffers discrimination is denied equal protection whether or not the government discriminated against others. 71 The Batson majority found no reason not to extend these venire-selection principles to the petit jury selection process—and more specifically, to a prosecutor’s use of peremptories. 72 Directly contravening Swain, the Court held “that a defendant may establish a prima facie case of purposeful discrimination in selection of the petit jury solely on evidence concerning the prosecutor’s exercise of peremptory challenges at [his] trial.” 73 To establish a prima facie case, an accused “first must show that he is a member of a cognizable racial group . . . and that the prosecutor has” used peremptories to remove members of the accused’s race. 74 The defendant may then rely on the indisputable proposition that peremptory challenges enable discrimination by those inclined to discriminate. 75 “Finally, the defendant must show that these facts and any other relevant circumstances raise an inference” of juror exclusion “on account of their race.” 76 Judges 66. Id. (quoting United States v. Robinson, 421 F. Supp. 467, 473 (D. Conn. 1976)) (internal quotation marks omitted). 67. Id. 68. Id. at 91. 69. Id. at 92–93. 70. Id. at 95. 71. Id. at 95–96. 72. Id. at 96. 73. Id. 74. Id. 75. Id. 76. Id.
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Twenty-Five Years of Batson: An Introduction to ... - University of Iowa

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