Sanchez v. Roden , 808 F.3d 85 ( 2015 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 15-1197
DAGOBERTO SANCHEZ,
Petitioner, Appellant,
v.
GARY RODEN,
Respondent, Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. F. Dennis Saylor, IV, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Lynch, Thompson, and Kayatta,
Circuit Judges.
Ruth Greenberg, for appellant.
Thomas E. Bocian, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal
Bureau, with whom Maura Healey, Attorney General of Massachusetts,
was on brief, for appellee.
December 7, 2015
LYNCH, Circuit Judge. This habeas corpus petition comes
to us again following our previous opinion remanding to the federal
district court. Sanchez v. Roden (Sanchez I), 753 F.3d 279, 309
(1st Cir. 2014). The petition contests the state court's
conclusion that the state prosecutor did not violate the Fourteenth
Amendment in his exercise of a peremptory challenge during jury
selection for Dagoberto Sanchez's state trial on charges of second-
degree murder and unlawful possession of a firearm. Sanchez
contends that the challenge was impermissibly based on race.
Previously, this court found that, contrary to the state
court's ruling, Sanchez had established a prima facie case of
racial discrimination under step one of the framework established
in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986). We remanded the case
to the federal district court for an evidentiary hearing as to
steps two and three of Batson. After that hearing, which included
testimony from the prosecutor who exercised the challenge, the
district court ruled against Sanchez on the final step of Batson
and denied his petition. Sanchez v. Roden, No. 12-10931, 2015 WL
461917 (D. Mass. Feb. 4, 2015). We affirm.
I.
We recite only the facts necessary to these habeas
proceedings, as our previous opinion in this case describes
Sanchez's conviction and direct appeal in detail. In 2005, Sanchez
was indicted for second-degree murder and unlawful possession of
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a firearm. During jury selection for his trial, state prosecutor
Mark Lee exercised peremptory challenges, as relevant here, to
strike three black men age 25 or under (Jurors 201, 227, and 261).1
After striking Jurors 201 and 227 but before striking Juror 261,
a 19-year-old black male college student, Prosecutor Lee seated
Juror 243, a 21-year-old white male college student born in Russia.
When Lee moved to strike Juror 261, Sanchez's defense counsel
objected, arguing that Lee was striking young black potential
jurors on the basis of a combination of their race, youth, and
gender. The judge ruled that Sanchez had not made a prima facie
case of discrimination. Ultimately, the impaneled jury of sixteen
included three black women and two black men. The jury convicted
Sanchez, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder,
with a concurrent two-year sentence on the firearm charge.
On appeal to the Massachusetts Appeals Court, Sanchez
contended, among other things, that Lee had improperly exercised
peremptory challenges against young "men of color," but the state
appeals court rejected that contention, Commonwealth v. Sanchez,
944 N.E.2d 625, 628–29 (Mass. App. Ct. 2011), and the Massachusetts
Supreme Judicial Court denied further review, Commonwealth v.
Sanchez, 950 N.E.2d 438 (Mass. 2011) (table decision). Sanchez
1 The record does not clearly establish Juror 201's race,
but given indications in the state court proceedings that he was
a "person of color," we count him among the black jurors for the
purposes of our Batson analysis.
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subsequently petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C.
§ 2254 in federal district court. The district court, determining
the state court's application of federal law was reasonable, denied
the petition. Sanchez v. Roden, No. 12-10931, 2013 WL 593960, at
*6 (D. Mass. Feb. 14, 2013) (applying the Batson framework).
This court disagreed with the Massachusetts Appeals
Court and with the district court's finding. Sanchez I, 753 F.3d
at 309. This court held that the state appeals court's Batson
analysis had unreasonably focused on the overall racial
composition of the impaneled jury, ignoring evidence of possible
discrimination against the subset of young black men. Id. at 299–
300. Reviewing the record de novo, the panel found that a prima
facie case of racial discrimination in the prosecution's
peremptory challenge against Juror 261 had been established under
Batson. Noting that Lee had not yet provided a reason for the
challenge, id. at 307, the panel remanded the case to the federal
district court to complete the Batson inquiry, id. at 308
(instructing the district court to follow the guidance set forth
in People v. Johnson, 136 P.3d 804, 808 (Cal. 2006)).
On remand, the district court held an evidentiary
hearing on September 8, 2014, in which Lee alone testified and was
subject to cross-examination by petitioner's counsel. Lee
testified that he challenged Juror 261 -- the 19-year-old black
male -- and several other jurors, including Jurors 201, 227, and
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229, a white male college student, because of their youth. He
stated that his general practice is to challenge young jurors,
such that when he reviews jury questionnaires at the beginning of
jury selection, "one of the very first things" he looks at is the
age of prospective jurors, which he circles in red.
Lee testified that the dynamics of jury selection also
played a "significant role" in exercising challenges. He stated,
"I'm always monitoring how many peremptory challenges I have left
versus how many peremptory challenges defense counsel has left and
also in consideration of what I understand to be upcoming based
upon the questionnaires." He explained, "the more challenges the
defense has, the more flexible they can be about exercising those
challenges, and, therefore, I have to be careful about the number
of challenges that I'm exercising under those circumstances." Lee
testified that during individual questioning of the prospective
jurors, he flipped through the jury questionnaires and a chart
that he kept to track which jurors had been struck by which party.
On cross-examination, he maintained that he does this "in every
trial all the time" and is "constantly looking through the
questionnaires." He stated specifically that his low number of
remaining challenges and "the number of jurors that still needed
to be selected" in combination also motivated his choices regarding
striking Juror 261 and keeping Juror 243.
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When asked to explain why he did not challenge Juror 243
-- the 21-year-old white male college student from Russia -- Lee
testified that he was "running out of challenges." He explained
that when he has few challenges remaining, he reviews the jury
"questionnaires to determine how many of the remaining challenges
[he is] likely to have to use," and he then accepts young jurors
based on indications that "might make them not fit their
chronological age." In the case of Juror 243, Lee stated, "I took
him, despite not wanting to take him," as "he was born in Moscow
. . . [and] he came here on his own to begin his own education,
and so I thought if I had to take a young juror, that would be
somebody who might be a better candidate than most." On cross-
examination, Lee conceded that there was no way to know whether
Juror 243 had grown up abroad, but he reiterated that he was
looking for "somebody who has some level of maturity and life
experiences," and he thought Juror 243 seemed "a little bit older
than someone else in terms of life experience."
During cross-examination, Lee stated that the only
"outward" difference between Juror 243 and Juror 261 was that one
was white and the other black. The district judge then asked,
"Well, one was 19 and one was 21, right, do I have that right?"
Both Sanchez's counsel and Lee responded affirmatively. The
following colloquy between Sanchez's counsel and Lee ensued:
Lee: Yes, [Juror 243] was two years older.
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Sanchez's Counsel: But you challenged people
who were older than 21 for age, did you not?
Lee: Yes. There is a distinction, but, as I
said, my inclination would have been to strike
[Juror 243] under all things being equal.
Sanchez's Counsel: So the two years was not
the defining difference for you?
Lee: At that stage of the game, every possible
distinction was relevant.
Subsequent questioning turned to the importance of trial dynamics
to Lee's choices.
In a February 4, 2015, order, the district court denied
Sanchez's habeas petition. In reaching its decision, the district
court considered Lee's testimony, oral argument by both parties,
the Commonwealth's Supplemental Answer to the 2012 habeas
petition, which included jury questionnaires, as well as the
parties' opposing memoranda of law. The court specifically found
Lee's demeanor "professional and credible throughout." At Batson
step two, the court concluded that Lee's testimony that he struck
Juror 261 because of his age was facially valid and race-neutral.
At Batson step three, the court focused on Lee's testimony at the
evidentiary hearing. Recognizing the practice of striking
potential jurors because of their youth as an accepted trial
strategy, the court credited Lee's explanation of his decision to
strike Juror 261 based on his age. As to the alleged inconsistency
in Lee's application of that practice, the court credited two
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additional points: first, that Lee drew distinctions between young
people that led him to keep some jurors but strike others; and
second, that considerations of remaining challenges for either
party, the number of jury seats to fill, and the pool of potential
jurors motivated Lee to depart from his practice regarding age.
After an extensive review of the evidence, the district court
concluded that Sanchez had not proven Lee exercised a peremptory
challenge to Juror 261 on the basis of race. This appeal followed.
II.
Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), sets forth the
three-step framework courts use to assess claims of racial
discrimination in jury selection. When raising an objection to a
prosecutor's use of a peremptory challenge, a criminal defendant
must first make a prima facie case of racial discrimination.
Snyder v. Louisiana, 552 U.S. 472, 476 (2008). If such a showing
is made, then "the prosecution must offer a race-neutral basis for
striking the juror in question." Id. at 477 (quoting Miller-El v.
Dretke, 545 U.S. 231, 277 (2005) (Thomas, J., dissenting)).
Finally, based on "all of the circumstances," the court must
determine whether the defendant has carried his ultimate burden of
showing purposeful racial discrimination. Id. at 478.
Since this court previously determined that Sanchez had
made a prima facie case, this appeal concerns only the latter two
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steps of the Batson inquiry as applied to Juror 261.2 Typically,
we may not on habeas review order an evidentiary hearing under 28
U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2), barring statutorily enumerated exceptions not
applicable here. See Cullen v. Pinholster, 131 S. Ct. 1388, 1398–
1400 (2011). However, we note, as we did in our previous decision,
that our remand to the federal district court for an evidentiary
hearing on an issue of federal law about which "the state courts
have already had their say" was permissible in light of the fact
that the paucity of the record was owing to the state court's
unreasonable application of Batson's first step. Sanchez I, 753
F.3d at 308; see Madison v. Comm'r, Ala. Dep't of Corrections, 761
F.3d 1240, 1249–50 (11th Cir. 2014); Paulino v. Harrison, 542 F.3d
692, 698 & n.5 (9th Cir. 2008); cf. Smith v. Cain, 708 F.3d 628,
635 (5th Cir. 2013) (finding Batson evidentiary hearing ordered by
district court to satisfy § 2254(e)(2) where criminal defendant
raised Batson objection "but the state court failed to provide him
the opportunity to develop the factual basis of his claim through
its misapplication of the Batson standard"). Neither party has
objected to this procedure.
2 We previously held that Sanchez waived any objection to
the prosecution's challenges to other jurors by failing to raise
them at trial, Sanchez I, 753 F.3d at 295 & n.10, and Sanchez
cannot revive such challenges in this appeal. We note, however,
that challenges to other jurors nonetheless may be relevant to the
issue of discriminatory intent, Dretke, 545 U.S. at 241, and so we
consider such evidence for that purpose.
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We review the district court's decision to deny a
petition for habeas corpus de novo, Sanchez I, 753 F.3d at 293,
and in the Batson context, we apply clear error review to the fact-
finding court's ruling on discriminatory intent, Snyder, 552 U.S.
at 477; United States v. Monell, 801 F.3d 34, 43 (1st Cir. 2015).
Where the federal district court conducted an evidentiary hearing
and took testimony from the prosecutor who exercised the challenge
at issue, we recognize that "determinations of credibility and
demeanor lie 'peculiarly within [its] province.'" Snyder, 552
U.S. at 477 (quoting Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. 322, 365
(1991)). We must uphold the district court's ruling unless "we
are left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has
been committed." United States v. Mensah, 737 F.3d 789, 796-97
(1st Cir. 2013) (quoting United States v. Gonzalez-Melendez, 594
F.3d 28, 35 (1st Cir. 2010)); see also Madison, 761 F.3d at 1245;
Paulino, 542 F.3d at 698.
A. Batson Step Two
When called upon to provide a race-neutral basis for his
actions, Lee explained that he challenged Juror 261 because of his
"age." Age is not a protected category under Batson. See United
States v. Cresta, 825 F.2d 538, 545 (1st Cir. 1987); see also
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United States v. Helmstetter, 479 F.3d 750, 754 (10th Cir. 2007)
(collecting agreeing sister circuits).3
Bearing in mind that at step two, the prosecution's
reason does not have to be "persuasive, or even plausible," Purkett
v. Elem, 514 U.S. 765, 768 (1995) (per curiam), we easily affirm
the district court's finding that Lee's explanation -- that he
struck Juror 261 because of his age -- is race-neutral, United
States v. Bowles, 751 F.3d 35, 38 (1st Cir. 2014), and satisfies
the state's burden at step two to articulate a nondiscriminatory
reason for the strike, Purkett, 514 U.S. at 769.
B. Batson Step Three
The critical issue at this step "is the persuasiveness
of the prosecutor's justification for his peremptory strike."
Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 338–39 (2003). The burden of
proof lies with Sanchez to show that Lee acted with discriminatory
purpose. Purkett, 514 U.S. at 768. Since this step turns on
credibility determinations and a fact-driven evaluation of all the
3 Disputing Lee's explanation, Sanchez contends that our
opinion in Sanchez I conclusively determined that "age" did not
motivate Lee in striking Juror 261. See Sanchez I, 753 F.3d at
306. That contention is meritless, and it misses the point and
purpose of the remand. Whatever conclusions we drew about Lee's
motivations in our prior opinion reflected only the limited facts
then available on the state court record, id. at 307. Our prior
analysis pertained only to Batson step one and does not determine
our current review of the latter Batson steps, based on the
district court's findings, which are based on a different and
augmented record.
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relevant circumstances that the district court is best suited to
make, Cockrell, 537 U.S. at 339, we review the court's ruling
through "a highly deferential glass," United States v. Lara, 181
F.3d 183, 194 (1st Cir. 1999). We affirm the district court's
finding that Sanchez has not established that Lee's challenge to
Juror 261 was race-based.
Sanchez argues, as he did before the district court,
that Lee was not motivated to challenge Juror 261 because of his
youth, since were youth a criterion, he would have struck a
similarly situated juror, Juror 243 (the 21-year-old white male
born in Russia).4 Courts may consider "whether similarly situated
jurors from outside the allegedly targeted group were permitted to
serve." United States v. Aranjo, 603 F.3d 112, 115 (1st Cir. 2010)
(quoting Aspen v. Bissonnette, 480 F.3d 571, 577 (1st Cir. 2007));
see also Dretke, 545 U.S. at 241. Lee testified that although he
was inclined to challenge Juror 243, he decided instead not to
because he was "running out of challenges," and Juror 243 appeared
more mature than his "chronological age." Lee testified:
I took [Juror 243], despite not wanting to
take him, but I was -- there are a number of
young jurors who I will take based upon what
I consider to be indications on their
4 As to other young jurors, the record amply supports the
district court's determination that Lee declined to strike Juror
255 because she was, at age 27, not "overly young," and declined
to strike Juror 293, a 26-year-old female, and Juror 333, a 23-
year-old female, because he had only three and two challenges
remaining, respectively.
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questionnaire that might make them not fit
their chronological age, which is to say that
he was 21 years old, but I noted he was born
in Moscow, I noted that he came here on his
own to begin his own education, and so I
thought if I had to take a young juror, that
would be somebody who might be a better
candidate than most.
Regarding Juror 261, in contrast, Lee testified that he "didn't
see anything else on [Juror 261's] questionnaire that would give
[him] reason to believe that he had a maturity level greater than
that of an age 19-year-old person."
Sanchez attempts to undercut the district court's
finding as to this explanation's credibility. First, he points to
Lee's concession on cross-examination that he was aware jury
members must be U.S. citizens as proof that Lee did not believe
Juror 243 "came here on his own to begin his own education," and
so could not have perceived the juror to be more mature on that
basis. Second, Sanchez argues that Lee could not have viewed being
foreign-born as a sign of maturity because, had this been his view,
he would not have struck Juror 201 (a 25-year-old male from
Trinidad). Third, he argues that the district court improperly
supplied Lee with the idea that the difference in age between 19
and 21 was meaningful. None of the arguments have merit.
Sanchez's first argument does not establish clear error.
Even if Lee was ultimately mistaken in his assumptions about Juror
243's biography, what matters is whether the explanation genuinely
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"reflected [his] true motive." Aranjo, 603 F.3d at 116. The
district court observed Lee testify, including subject to an
extensive cross-examination, and concluded that it was plausible
that Lee had seen Juror 243's foreign origin as conferring greater
maturity. The court's rejection of Sanchez's first argument is
not clear error.
The second argument fares no better, and it misconstrues
Lee's testimony. Lee did testify that he generally sought to
exclude young potential jurors, but he did not testify that he
perceived being foreign-born as an absolute exception to his rule
on youth. Lee stated that in the particular case of Juror 243, he
was looking for indications that he was "a little bit older than
someone else in terms of life experiences" because of the
diminishing number of challenges remaining. Examining the
dynamics of the jury selection process, the district court
correctly noted that Lee "had substantially more flexibility when
considering juror[] 201," the Trinidadian, than when considering
later jurors, as he had 12 out of 16 peremptory challenges
remaining at the time. It was not clear error for the district
court to credit the sincerity of Lee's consideration of Juror 243's
foreign birth.
Sanchez's third argument is qualitatively different. He
argues that the district court improperly supplied Lee with a way
to distinguish between Juror 243 and Juror 261. Sanchez points to
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a moment during cross-examination following a concession by Lee
that both Jurors 243 and 261 were young college students and that
their only "outward" ascertainable difference was race. The
district judge at that point interjected: "Well, one was 19 and
one was 21, right, do I have that right?" After both Sanchez's
counsel and Lee responded affirmatively to the judge's question,
the following colloquy between Sanchez's counsel and Lee occurred:
Sanchez's Counsel: But you challenged people
who were older than 21 for age, did you not?
Lee: Yes. There is a distinction, but, as I
said, my inclination would have been to strike
[Juror 243] under all things being equal.
Sanchez's Counsel: So the two years was not
the defining difference for you?
Lee: At that stage of the game, every possible
distinction was relevant.
Although the district court does not refer to this particular
exchange, Sanchez relies on Miller-El v. Dretke, 545 U.S. 231(2005), to suggest that the trial judge improperly supplied Lee
with the difference in age between the jurors as the reason for
striking, id. at 252.
This argument lacks merit for a number of reasons. As
a matter of law, any reliance on Dretke is misplaced. Dretke
involved a Batson challenge in which the appellate court justified
a prosecutor's strike based on a "rational basis" for his actions
that the court supplied, without taking full account of the record.
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Id. The Court held that neither trial nor appellate courts may
disregard the record and "imagine a reason" for a prosecutor's
actions. Id. That is not what happened here. Here, in concluding
that Lee perceived a difference in maturity between Juror 243 and
Juror 261, the district court recited ample record evidence,
including Lee's testimony from before the contested exchange. The
district court's conclusions do not rely on, or even mention, the
disputed exchange. But even so, we note that the disputed
statement that "every possible distinction was relevant,"
referring to the difference in the jurors' chronological ages, was
made in response to opposing counsel's question and not that of
the district judge. We simply do not have a case where after the
fact the district court concocted an explanation from whole cloth
without record support.5 Given the highly deferential standard of
review on questions of credibility, we have no trouble affirming
the district court's finding that Lee regarded Jurors 243 and 261
as different based on differences other than race.
5 To be clear, a trial judge has discretion to make
inquiries of witnesses as necessary to facilitate a full and fair
hearing. See Fed. R. Evid. 614(b); United States v. Melendez-
Rivas, 566 F.3d 41, 50 (1st Cir. 2009). It is permissible in the
normal course of a Batson hearing for a judge to ask clarifying
questions and at times engage with witnesses directly. Indeed,
the fact that the district judge here did so several times apart
from the contested exchange further indicates that, seen in the
context of a normal hearing, there was nothing prejudicial in the
judge's question about the difference in age between Jurors 243
and 261.
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Further, Lee's choice to keep Juror 243 but strike Juror
261 is also supported by his testimony concerning the importance
of strategically using and preserving strikes in light of the
dynamics of jury selection. As the district court noted,
consideration of the number of jurors to be seated and the number
of remaining challenges of either party is valid. Mensah, 737
F.3d at 802 (noting as a valid concern a prosecutor's cautiousness
over a single remaining strike when faced with unknown upcoming
jurors). Sanchez argues that Lee could not have so calculated the
number of remaining challenges, unseated jurors, and
characteristics of potential jurors. Lee explained his practice
concerning these calculations and on cross-examination maintained,
"I do it in every trial all the time. I'm constantly looking
through the questionnaires." There is nothing improbable about a
trial lawyer using such a practice. The district court's crediting
of this explanation was not clearly erroneous.
Sanchez's remaining arguments do not convince us
otherwise. Sanchez points to the fact that the prosecutor
eliminated one-hundred percent of young black men from the venire.
We have previously held that this is not alone sufficient to prove
discrimination, especially where there are small numbers of
potential jurors of the allegedly targeted group. See id. at 801
(cautioning against weighing heavily that prosecutor struck all
Asian-Americans where only two were in venire); Caldwell v.
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Maloney, 159 F.3d 639, 656 (1st Cir. 1998) (upholding peremptory
strikes of all four potential jurors of one race). Sanchez also
points to Lee's failure to explain his use of a peremptory
challenge during the original jury selection, but Lee was not
required to provide such an explanation until one was requested of
him. Sanchez I issued such a request, and Lee has now duly offered
his explanation.
We acknowledge both the difficulties in making a Batson
determination on a cold record many years following the original
jury selection and also the importance of protecting the right of
every juror to serve and of every defendant to have a trial free
of the taint of racial discrimination. See Batson, 476 U.S. at
87. But here the district court did not abuse its broad discretion
as factfinder on matters of credibility in concluding that Sanchez
has not proven that there was racial discrimination. That ends
the matter.
III.
For the reasons stated, we affirm the denial of the
habeas petition.
- Concurring Opinion Follows -
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THOMPSON, Circuit Judge, concurring. The majority
opinion accurately sets forth the applicable law and cogently
explains why, given our standard of review, we cannot reverse the
district court's rejection of Dagoberto Sanchez's Batson
challenge. Therefore, I reluctantly concur in the majority's
result and reasoning. I write separately to point out that
Sanchez's Batson challenge has traveled an arduous route through
the state and federal courts and because of that historical
journey, I am left with a queasy confidence in the decision we
reach today. Let me explain.
When defense counsel first raised a Batson challenge in
state court way back in September of 2006, the trial judge was
ready with an immediate (and inappropriate) response. Without
asking for the prosecution's justification, the judge gratuitously
said in reference to the just-struck 19-year-old African American
(Juror No. 261): "I think his youth and the fact that he's a full-
time college student could be a problem." Sanchez v. Roden, 753
F.3d 279, 286-87 (1st Cir. 2014). With that, the judge not only
put words in the prosecutor's mouth, but he also telegraphed what
the court would consider to be acceptable, race-neutral reasons
justifying the peremptory strike.
And it should come as no surprise that nearly eight years
later, when finally called upon to explain why he struck this
particular juror, the prosecutor seized upon the juror's "youth."
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In doing so, the prosecutor did nothing more than parrot back the
trial judge's unprompted suggestion.
How well this case illustrates the Massachusetts Supreme
Judicial Court's warning that a trial judge who offers up his own
reason for a prosecutor's peremptory strike "risks assuming the
role of the prosecutor." Commonwealth v. Fryar, 610 N.E.2d 903,
908 (Mass. 1993). It takes no great amount of thought to conclude
that, had the trial judge required a contemporaneous explanation
for the prosecutor's strikes, my trust in having reached the
correct outcome (whichever way it went) would be greatly increased.
Unfortunately, we will never know what the prosecutor would have
said in September 2006 had the trial judge not erred in his
application of the Supreme Court's Batson protocol. As a result,
there will always be a nagging question in my mind as to whether
structural error occurred at Sanchez's trial which has not been
detected or corrected. Cf. Snyder v. Louisiana, 552 U.S. 472, 477
(2008) (recognizing the trial court's "pivotal role in evaluating
Batson claims" because "'the best evidence [of discriminatory
intent] often will be the demeanor of the attorney who exercises
the challenge'" (alteration in original) (quoting Hernandez v. New
York, 500 U.S. 352, 365 (1991) (plurality opinion))).
Now, Sanchez's habeas petition was essentially doomed
when, following the district court's evidentiary hearing, the
district judge "found [the prosecutor's testimony] to be credible
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in all respects." Sanchez v. Roden, No. 12-cv-10931-FDS, 2015 WL
461917, at *7 (D. Mass. Feb. 4, 2015). And why did the judge
believe the prosecutor's adoption of the trial judge's suggestion
explained his peremptory challenges? Because "[h]is demeanor was
professional and credible throughout" the proceeding. Id. Through
this observation, the judge effectively said that he found a
professional to be professional. But again, what else would be
expected when the prosecutor went into the hearing not only having
had almost eight years to consider what he would say, but also
with the awareness of what the state trial judge considered to be
a perfectly valid and acceptable justification for the strike?
To be sure, the district judge also noted that the
prosecutor's testimony "was based in part on memory and in part on
his routine empanelment practices, and [that] he endeavored to
distinguish between the two as he testified." Id. He also gave
a nod to defense counsel's "extensive cross-examination" of the
prosecutor. Id. These factors, it appears, must have played
contributory roles in the overall finding of credibility.
But the prosecutor's testimony was not exactly
monolithic. On direct, he explained why he accepted Juror No.
243, the 21-year-old white college student from Russia, but not
Juror No. 261, the 19-year-old black college student from Boston:
I go through those [juror] questionnaires to
determine how many of the remaining challenges
I'm likely to have to use, and in that
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particular instance, I took him, despite not
wanting to take him, but I was -- there are a
number of young jurors who I will take based
upon what I consider to be indications on
their questionnaire that might make them not
fit their chronological age, which is to say
that he was 21 years old, but I noted he was
born in Moscow, I noted that he came here on
his own to begin his own education, and so I
thought if I had to take a young juror, that
would be somebody who might be a better
candidate than most.
Thus, the reason given for accepting one young college
student while striking the other is that there was something "more"
(my word, not the prosecutor's) in the white juror's questionnaire
-- and which was absent from the young black man's -- that led the
prosecutor to believe Juror No. 243 might be more mature than he
would expect other 21-year-olds to be. As it turns out, the
prosecutor's unequivocal testimony about this "more" -- that the
questionnaire told him Juror No. 243 traveled to the United States
"on his own to begin his own education" -- did not hold up on
cross-examination.
After confirming that the white 21-year-old had been
born in Moscow, Russia (as opposed to Moscow, Maine) the prosecutor
had the following exchange with Sanchez's counsel:
Q. Okay. This is somebody who wouldn't have
the same experience with our system of law as
other citizens?
A. I don't know. All I know is that he was
born in another country and was attending
school in the United States.
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Q. Okay. And what about that did you find
beneficial? Was there something about him
that overcame the fact that he was young?
A. Barely, yes. The fact that I was down to
six challenges and looking at him, my
inclination was to strike him, but was there
anything specifically that said to me, [']oh,
I want this person,['] not that I can
remember. It was more of a hold-your-nose
situation and take him because I thought
somebody who came to this country to go to
school at the age of 21 may have been
chronologically a little bit older than
someone else in terms of life experiences, and
that's really what I'm looking at that
somebody who has some level of maturity and
life experience.
The prosecutor initially stood strong and maintained the
position he took on direct, namely, that Juror No. 243 came to the
United States on his own to attend college. But the very next
exchange opened up a chink in the foundation:
Q. Well, he couldn't have come here to go to
school, he had to be a citizen [to serve on
the jury], correct?
A. I didn't mean that I knew his life history.
I knew he was 21, and I knew that he was here
attending school and he was born in another
country.
This next colloquy brought the testimonial edifice
tumbling down:
Q. The fact that the man was born in Russia,
you don't know whether he came here at six
days old, six months old, six, sixteen years
old; you have no idea?
A. Correct, absolutely no idea.
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So much for the prosecutor's professed belief that Juror
243 might be more mature than other 21-year-olds as a result of
his having come to the United States on his own to further his
education.
Nevertheless, seizing on this about-face to reject the
district judge's credibility determination would overlook the fact
that the prosecutor actually gave another reason for believing
this particular 21-year-old might be more mature than his
chronological age would generally indicate. After all, the
prosecutor also said that he relied on the fact that the
prospective juror had been "born in Moscow." Cross-examination
did not substantially undercut this second reason. Indeed, he
explained, "I thought somebody who came to this country to go to
school at the age of 21 may have been chronologically a little bit
older than someone else in terms of life experiences, and that's
really what I'm looking at that somebody who has some level of
maturity and life experience."
That Juror No. 243 was born in Moscow, Russia is
uncontested on this record. And it's a fact that technically
differentiates Juror No. 243 from Juror No. 261, who was born in
the Boston area. Whether this ostensibly race-neutral fact6 -- as
6
Presumably, place of birth would only make a difference if
the individual lived there beyond his or her early childhood. Had
Juror No. 243 moved from Russia to the United States when he was,
say, two years old, there is no reason at all to believe that his
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opposed to one being white and the other black -- explains the
prosecutor's exercise of his peremptory challenges depends
entirely on the credibility of the prosecutor's testimony. The
district judge, after hearing his testimony on direct and cross-
examination, found it credible and determined that the prosecutor
did not strike Juror No. 261 on account of his race.
This case is devoid of extrinsic evidence of racial
discrimination. We do not, for example, have trial notes from the
prosecutor indicating that race played a role in jury selection.
We do not have evidence that the prosecutor manipulated trial
procedures in an attempt to influence the racial makeup of the
jury. See, e.g., Miller-El v. Dretke, 545 U.S. 231, 253-55 (2005)
(commenting on the prosecutor's use of a "jury shuffle" to keep
black members of the venire at the back of the line). Nor is there
evidence of a longstanding tradition of racial discrimination in
Russian birthplace could render him more mature than his
chronological age or distinguish him from Juror No. 261. The
prosecutor admitted, of course, that he has "no idea" how long
Juror No. 243 lived in Russia. But, as the majority opinion
correctly points out, under Batson the reason for a peremptory
strike need not be correct, persuasive or even plausible, so long
as it is race neutral. Moreover, once a race-neutral reason is
advanced, the peremptory challenge will be allowed so long as the
trial judge is convinced that the challenging party provided the
real motivation for the strike, and that the reason was not offered
merely to camouflage racial discrimination. Thus, what is
important for our purposes here is not whether a young man who
happened to have been born in Moscow is more mature than other
young men of his age who had been born in Boston, but whether the
prosecutor genuinely believed that to be possible. And the
district judge found that he did.
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the use of peremptory challenges in the prosecutor's office,7 or
evidence that prosecutors were encouraged to exercise peremptories
so as to keep minorities off the jury. See id. at 263-66 (taking
into account a particular county's "specific policy of
systematically excluding blacks from juries," id. at 263). And
nothing in the record clearly demonstrates that the prosecutor's
proffered reason for accepting Juror No. 243 but not Juror No. 261
was pretextual. See id. at 240-52, 255-63 (comparing the
prosecution's treatment and questioning of black versus white
venire members at voir dire and concluding that "the implication
of race in the prosecutors' choice of questioning cannot be
explained away," id. at 263); see also Snyder, 552 U.S. at 485(concluding that the justification offered by the prosecutor was
pretextual after conducting a comparative juror analysis).
In sum, whether the prosecutor's strike of Juror No. 261
violated Batson comes down entirely to his credibility in
explaining his strikes that day and, in particular, why he did not
challenge Juror No. 243. We have said time and time again that
making credibility determinations is a job for the district court,
not something for us to do looking at a cold record. Absent other
evidence in the record pointing to racial discrimination, we simply
7
Although counsel has represented that this has been a
problem in Suffolk County, the arguments of counsel are not
evidence.
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cannot say that the district judge clearly erred in accepting the
prosecutor's explanation and upholding the peremptory challenge.
This holds true even if any one (or all) of us, sitting as the
trial judge, might have reached a contrary conclusion.
Finally, because a trial judge faced with a Batson
challenge must consider the totality of the circumstances, it is
appropriate for us to acknowledge them here. Although we are
unable to say the district judge clearly erred in finding that the
prosecutor's strike was not motivated by Juror No. 261's race, the
end result is that all young, black men and young men of color in
the venire -- indeed all those who resembled Dagoberto Sanchez --
found themselves dismissed at the behest of their own government.
No other group of prospective jurors received such treatment.
The facts in this record certainly raise the judicial
antennae. But given the standard of review, I can do no more than
register my discomfort at having to affirm the denial of habeas
relief even though the best evidence as to whether or not a Batson
violation occurred -- the prosecutor's contemporaneous explanation
-- has been irretrievably lost to us.
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