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North Carolina v. Robinson5/6/1994
s choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous.'" Thomas, 329 N.C. at 433, 407 S.E.2d at 148 (quoting Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 574, 84 L. Ed. 2d 518, 528, 105 S. Ct. 1504 (1985)).
In this sentencing hearing, defendant was black and his three victims were white. One of the key witnesses, Thomas Wood, was black. At the time of the sentencing hearing, defendant was thirty-one years old.
Defendant raised his first Batson challenge when the prosecutor struck jurors Lolita Page and Evelyn Lee. At this point, the State had examined twelve jurors, eight of whom were white and four
black. The prosecutor accepted two of the black jurors and challenged two. As the basis for his exercise of the peremptory challenge, the prosecutor stated (1) that Ms. Page was a liberal arts teacher, she had a master's degree in education, and her husband was also a teacher and had been for twenty years; (2) that she had a male child sixteen years old and that she would have sympathy for defendant and not for the State; and (3) that she answered some of the questions with her arms folded and did not answer in a very direct manner. The prosecutor stated that he did not feel that she would be a juror who would be fair and impartial toward the State.
With regard to Evelyn Lee, the prosecutor noted that she had stated that she was eager to attend her granddaughter's graduation from Towson State University on Thursday, that she had a doctor's appointment the following Monday, and that she had back problems that she mentioned in response to the prosecutor's question whether anyone on the jury had any problems that would interfere with his or her service as a juror. She had a male child twenty-eight years of age and another forty-one years of age. When asked if she had ever been a witness in a civil case, she confused being a witness with being a juror. In addition, she listed her age as fifty-nine but appeared to the prosecutor to be much older than that. The prosecutor concluded by stating that, given her age, her family obligations, the male children in her family, and her somewhat confused state in answering the questions, she would not be a completely fair and impartial juror in the case.
Before overruling defendant's Batson objection, the trial court noted that there was no prima facie showing of discrimination, that two of the ten jurors passed to the defendant were black, and that four of the ten passed to the State had been black. Defendant made no further showing at trial regarding jurors Page and Lee. We hold that the trial court did not err in overruling defendant's objection to the State's use of its peremptory challenges for jurors Page and Lee.
In his second Batson objection, defendant questioned the State's dismissal of juror Lyles. Prior to defendant's objection to the excusal of juror Lyles, the State had also exercised a peremptory challenge, without objection, to excuse juror Arrington. In overruling defendant's objection to the State's excusal of juror Lyles, the trial court stated:
That the Court has observed the questioning by counsel for the State of all the jurors. That the Court can distinguish no significant variance between the method of inquiry followed by the State for any juror. That there is no evidence that the jurors were asked different questions, depending on whether they were black or white.
That there are now three blacks seated on the jury. That even though the passing and seating of a black on a jury does not, in and of itself, obviate a claim for discrimination, that it is evidence of a lack of purposeful discrimination by the State.
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 North Carolina DUI Attorneys
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