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People v. Parker2/7/2003
emaining prospective jurors challenged for cause by the People are without merit.
C. Formation of the Jury Panel
Defendant contends that he was denied his right to a jury representative of the community because of the under-representation of African-Americans and young people on the jury panel and the inadequacy of the various lists from which the jury panel was drawn. The court held a hearing on this issue, at which the New York State Commissioner of Jurors for Erie County testified that gender, age, and race are not considered in compiling the juror source list, that he followed Judiciary Law § 500 in obtaining juror names, and that juror names were drawn randomly from a source list compiled by the New York State Office of Court Administration. In response, defendant failed to establish that the systematic exclusion of a particular group is caused by means "'inherent in the particular jury-selection process utilized'" (People v Guzman, 60 NY2d 403, 411, cert denied 466 US 951, quoting Duren v Missouri, 439 US 357, 366; see People v McCann, 292 AD2d 804, 805, lv denied 98 NY2d 653; People v Jordan, 261 AD2d 947, lv denied 93 NY2d 1003).
(*9) Defendant's equal protection claim concerning the jury pool must also fail because defendant failed to meet his burden of proving "the degree of under-representation *, by comparing the proportion of the group in the total population to the proportion called to serve as * jurors, over a significant period of time" (Casteneda v Partida, 430 US 482, 494).
D. Defendant's Batson Challenges
Defendant contends that the court erred in denying several of his Batson challenges (see generally Batson v Kentucky, 476 US 79). We disagree. As a preliminary matter, we note that defendant failed to preserve for our review his contention that the court did not follow the requisite three-step procedure in evaluating his Batson challenges (see People v De Los Angeles, 270 AD2d 196, 198, lv denied 95 NY2d 889). Furthermore, we conclude that, in denying defendant's Batson challenges, the court thereby implicitly determined that the race-neutral explanations given by the prosecutor for exercising peremptory challenges with respect to those prospective jurors were not pretextual (see People v Pena, 251 AD2d 26, 34, lv denied 92 NY2d 929). We have examined the record with respect to the prospective jurors at issue and conclude that the court did not abuse its discretion in determining that the prosecutor presented a race-neutral explanation with respect to each of them (see People v Payne, 88 NY2d 172, 181; People v Montana, 298 AD2d 934). Defendant failed to establish that any of the explanations were pretextual (see Payne, 88 NY2d at 181; People v Diaz, 269 AD2d 766, lv denied 95 NY2d 852).
E. Disqualification of a Seated Juror
Contrary to defendant's contention, the court properly granted the People's motion to discharge an impaneled juror for cause. After the juror was sworn but before trial had commenced, the juror informed the court that she had been conducting some "biblical research" and had concluded that she could never vote to impose the death penalty. The juror's conscientious opinion against the death penalty constitutes a valid challenge for cause pursuant to CPL 270.20 (1) (f) (see Harris, 98 NY2d at 484). Thus, we conclude that the court properly determined that the juror was grossly unqualified pursuant to CPL 270.35 (1) to sit as a juror on this case and discharged her for cause (see People v Williams, 242 AD2d 917, 918, lv denied 91 NY2d 899, citing People v Rodriguez, 71 NY2d 214, 219).
F. Alleged Misconduct of a Prospective Juror
(*10) Contrary to the further c
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