James Blackman v. State ( 2012 )

Opinion issued October 11, 2012
In The
Court of Appeals
For The
First District of Texas
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NO. 01-08-00138-CR
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JAMES BLACKMAN, Appellant
V.
THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee
On Appeal from the 230th District Court
Harris County, Texas
Trial Court Case No. 1121171
DISSENTING OPINION
The majority holds that the trial court erred in denying appellant James
Blackman’s Batson challenge to the State’s use of a peremptory strike. I
respectfully dissent. I would hold that the trial court did not err, and I would
affirm the judgment of the trial court.
Appellant bases his Batson challenge on the State’s peremptory strike of
venire member J. Fortune, one of three African Americans in the available pool of
potential jurors, one of whom was seated on the jury. Appellant contends, and the
majority agrees, that the trial court erred in overruling his Batson challenge to the
State’s use of a peremptory strike against Fortune because the State’s reasons for
striking her constituted a “pretext for racial bias.” I strongly disagree.
In Batson, the United States Supreme Court held that using peremptory
challenges to exclude persons from a jury because of their race violates the Equal
Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 86, 106 S. Ct. 1712, 1717 (1986); Herron v.
State, 86 S.W.3d 621, 630 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002). Thus, in making a Batson
challenge to the prosecution’s exercise of a peremptory strike, “[t]he defendant
must demonstrate, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the prosecutor
indulged in purposeful discrimination against a member of a constitutionally
protected class. . . .” Watkins v. State, 245 S.W.3d 444, 447 (Tex. Crim. App.
2008). First, the defendant must make a prima facie showing of racial
discrimination. Id. (quoting Purkett v. Elem, 514 U.S. 765, 767, 115 S. Ct. 1769,
1770 (1995)). Second, if he does so, the burden of production shifts to the
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prosecutor to come forward with a race-neutral explanation for the strike. Id.
Third, the trial court must determine whether the defendant has proved purposeful
racial discrimination. Id. When the trial court goes directly to a Batson hearing on
neutral reasons and conducts a full hearing, without making a finding on the prima
facie showing of racial discrimination, the question of whether a prima facie case
was made becomes moot, and the reviewing court addresses only the second and
third steps in the analysis. Id. at 447 & n.11. Thus, appellate review concentrates
on the prosecutor’s race-neutral explanation for the peremptory strike and the
defendant’s rebuttal of the prosecutor’s explanation by a preponderance of the
evidence. See id.
“[T]he question presented at the third stage of the Batson inquiry is ‘whether
the defendant has shown purposeful discrimination.’” Snyder v. Louisiana, 552
U.S. 472, 484–85, 128 S. Ct. 1203, 1212 (2008) (quoting Miller-El v. Dretke, 545
U.S. 231, 277, 125 S. Ct. 2317, 2346 (2005) (Thomas, J., dissenting)). At this step,
“[t]he trial court has a pivotal role in evaluating Batson claims.” Id. at 477, 128
S. Ct. at 1208. This step involves an evaluation of the prosecutor’s credibility, and
“the best evidence [of discriminatory intent] often will be the demeanor of the
attorney who exercises the challenge.” Id. (quoting Hernandez v. New York, 500
U.S. 352, 365, 111 S. Ct. 1859, 1869 (1991) (plurality opinion)). “In addition,
race-neutral reasons for peremptory challenges often invoke a juror’s demeanor
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(e.g., nervousness, inattention), making the trial court’s first-hand observations of
even greater importance.” Id. In such a case, the trial court must evaluate “not
only whether the prosecutor’s demeanor belies a discriminatory intent, but also
whether the juror’s demeanor can credibly be said to have exhibited the basis for
the strike attributed to the juror by the prosecutor. . . . [T]hese determinations of
credibility and demeanor lie ‘peculiarly within a trial judge’s province.’” Id.
(quoting Hernandez, 500 U.S. at 365, 111 S. Ct. at 1869). Thus, except in
“exceptional circumstances,” the reviewing court defers to the trial court. Id.
“[A] reviewing court should examine a trial court’s conclusion that a facially
race-neutral explanation for a peremptory challenge is genuine, rather than a
pretext, with great deference, reversing only when that conclusion is, in view of the
record as a whole, clearly erroneous.” Watkins, 245 S.W.3d at 448. An appellate
court misapplies the “clearly erroneous” standard of appellate review when it
substitutes its judgment for that of the trial court in deciding that the prosecutor’s
facially race-neutral explanation for striking a venire member was a pretext.
Gibson v. State, 144 S.W.3d 530, 534 (Tex. Crim. App. 2004). This is because
“[t]he term ‘pretext’ is solely a question of fact; there is no issue of law.” Id.
Thus, “the trial court [is] in the best position to make that credibility
determination.” Id. To make the determination of whether the prosecutor’s race-
neutral explanation for his strike was a pretext, the reviewing court should consider
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the entire voir dire record, not merely those arguments or considerations the parties
specifically called to the trial court’s attention. Watkins, 245 S.W.3d at 448.
The trial court’s factual findings are presumed to be sound unless the
defendant rebuts the presumption of correctness by clear and convincing evidence.
Id. at 448 n.16 (quoting Miller-El, 545 U.S. at 240, 125 S. Ct. at 2325).
The Court of Criminal Appeals has cautioned,
The [United States] Supreme Court also clarified [in Miller-El v. Dretke]
that reviewing courts must take the proponent of a peremptory challenge at
his word when he identifies a race-neutral explanation for his challenge. If
that explanation proves circumstantially suspect, the reviewing court is not
to supply some other plausible, race-neutral basis for the challenge. “If the
stated reason does not hold up, its pretextual significance does not fade
because a trial judge, or an appeals court, can imagine a reason that might
not have been shown up as false.”
Id. at 449 n.19 (quoting Miller-El, 545 U.S. at 252, 125 S. Ct. at 2332). By the
same reasoning, if the prosecutor identifies a race-neutral explanation for his
challenge to a venire member that the trial court does not find circumstantially
suspect, the trial corut’s finding of racial neutrality does not fade into
insignificance because an appellate court can imagine a reason that the
prosecutor’s explanation for the strike might have been false. Rather, the
defendant must rebut the trial court’s findings by “clear and convincing evidence.”
Miller-El, 545 U.S. at 240, 125 S. Ct. at 2325; Watkins, 245 S.W.3d at 448.
Here, in direct contravention of the standard of review, the majority
substitutes itself for the trial court in deciding that the prosecutor’s facially race-
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neutral explanation for striking venire member Fortune was a pretext. See Gibson,
144 S.W.3d at 534 (holding that appellate court misapplied “clearly erroneous”
standard of review when it substituted its judgment for trial court’s in deciding that
prosecutor’s facially race-neutral reason for striking veniremember was pretext).
Rather than accepting the trial court’s finding that the prosecutor’s reasons for
striking Fortune were valid and race-neutral, and rather than requiring that the
defendant rebut the presumption of correctness by clear and convincing evidence,
the majority indulges its own presumption of incorrectness, essentially dismissing
the prosecutor’s explanation for striking Fortune out of hand. And, rather than
allowing the trial court to make the factual determination as to whether the
prosecutor’s stated reasons for the strike were a “pretext,” the majority ignores the
express finding of the trial court that the prosecutor’s reasons for the strike were
racially neutral. Instead, it determines for itself, based on its own evaluation of the
prosecutor’s and Fortune’s credibility from its review of the evidence, that the
prosecutor’s peremptory strike of Fortune was motivated by racial discrimination.
The majority treats the prosecutor’s stated reasons for striking Fortune with
incredulity throughout its opinion, in direct opposition to the mandate of Watkins
that it “should examine a trial court’s conclusion that a facially race-neutral
explanation for a peremptory challenge is genuine, rather than a pretext, with great
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deference.” Watkins, 245 S.W.3d at 448. It characterizes the prosecutor’s “stated
reasons” for striking Fortune with caveats and quotation marks:
his alleged belief that the jury on which Fortune had previously served
had not reached a verdict and her statement that the jury did not assess
punishment; Fortune’s “tone” and referral to the defendant in the prior
case as the “accused”; and her overall bad “vibe,” eye contract, and
demeanor with the prosecutor in contrast to her attentiveness to
appellant’s counsel (including the alleged incident in which she
“point[ed]” out to the prosecutor that he was wanted at the bench).
Slip Op. at 8. It then declares, “There is no factual basis in the record to support
the State’s argument that the jury on which Fortune had previously served did not
reach a verdict.” Slip Op. at 8.
The majority’s characterization of the prosecutor’s testimony and its implied
conclusion that that testimony is not based on fact can only have been intended to
support the majority’s substitution of its own evaluation of the credibility of the
prosecutor for that of the trial court, in contradiction of the standard of review. See
Gibson, 144 S.W.3d at 534; see also Snyder, 552 U.S. at 477, 128 S. Ct. at 1208
(stating that step three requires evaluation of prosecutor’s credibility, of which best
evidence is often demeanor of prosecutor, as well as venire member’s demeanor,
“making the trial court’s first-hand observations of even greater importance”). The
majority then reasons, “The prosecutor asked essentially identical questions of
[white] venire members 7 and 8 regarding whether they had assessed punishment
during their prior jury service,” and, “[d]espite their nearly identical answers to the
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prosecutor’s question,” seated them on the jury. The majority concludes that “the
State’s purported race-neutral explanation, which changed during the Batson
hearing and ultimately is not supported by the record, for striking Fortune based
upon her prior jury service, was not genuine and was pretextual” and, therefore,
“naturally gives rise to an inference of discriminatory intent.” Slip Op. at 9
(quoting Snyder, 552 U.S. at 485, 128 S. Ct. at 1212). It then simply dismisses the
reasons relating to Fortune’s demeanor that the State actually gave for striking
Fortune, including, as the majority puts it, “her purported bad ‘vibe,’ i.e., the tone
of her voice, lack of eye contact with the trial prosecutor, and her contrasting
attentiveness to appellant’s counsel.” Slip Op. at 9.
In substituting itself as fact-finder for the Batson inquiry, the majority
completely ignores the purpose of the exchange between the prosecutor and the
trial court at the Batson hearing, during which the trial court evaluated the
prosecutor’s demeanor and credibility. When asked for his race-neutral reasons for
striking Fortune, the prosecutor referenced the aspects of Fortune’s demeanor the
majority sets out and then stated,
For example, before we started jury selection when [appellant’s
counsel] wanted me to approach the bench, [Fortune] was paying
attention to him the whole time and then actually pointed me out to
tell me that he wanted me. That of and in itself isn’t that big of a deal
but then coupled when she was asked about her prior jury service, I
was troubled because she was the only person who used the term that
the defendant was accused of—I think burglary of habitation for
stealing something and then we went to the part whether or not she
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got a verdict or this as punishment she said they didn’t. I just got the
feeling—by the ways, she said the word accused that she felt like he
was wrongfully. I got based on the tone she was the only person who
described it as—everyone else when asked about it, they said it was a
theft case or it was this case. So, that was what troubled me with
regard to Juror No. 6. . . . [Y]ou can see, I placed Juror No. 24 on the
panel. There [are] other people I struck for similar reasons.
The court then asked who the other jurors were whom he struck “for similar
reasons,” and the prosecutor responded with references to jurors number one (a
white male), eleven (an African-American female), twelve (a white female), thirty-
three (a white male), and forty-two (a white male), referencing the similarities in
their demeanor to that of Fortune.
After the prosecutor explained his reasons for the strike, the trial court
recognized appellant’s counsel for rebuttal. Appellant’s counsel returned to the
prosecutor’s statement that he was troubled by Fortune’s calling the defendant in
the prior case in which she served as a juror “the accused,” and he reminded the
court that everyone is innocent until proved guilty. The trial court then questioned
the prosecutor more closely about the defense’s objection to the strike, and the
prosecutor emphasized in his answer that it was not just the fact that the jury had
not assessed punishment that caused him to strike Fortune, but “the way she
phrased it” and “the tone of voice she said it, the way the eye contact that I was not
getting with her, the eye contact [defense counsel] was getting with her, the way
she said I felt like she insinuations in my mind was that the I was wrongfully
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accused [sic].” Also, she had been “watching [defense counsel] just more which is
[a] concern of mine,” and she had pointed to the prosecutor to approach the bench
when he was not paying attention, “saying that [defense counsel] wanted me. So,
you know, I put those things together; and I just —that’s where I come up with my
concerns.”
After listening to the prosecutor’s explanation, the trial court—an
experienced and highly respected African-American female criminal district court
judge—immediately found on the record “that the State has offered race neutral
reasons for exercising their strikes [on] Venireman No. 6 [Fortune] and No. 11,”
and she denied the defense’s Batson motion. The majority states, however, that
“[t]he trial court then denied appellant’s Batson challenge without explanation,”
and “the trial court did not make a finding that the State had credibly relied on
Fortune’s demeanor or her bad ‘vibe’ in exercising the peremptory challenge
against her.” Slip Op. at 6. In fact, the trial court did expressly find on the record
that the State had “offered race neutral reasons” for exercising a peremptory strike
on Fortune.
Having made the incorrect statement that the trial court denied appellant’s
Batson challenge without explanation, the majority continues its substitution of
itself for the trial court in the Batson inquiry, stating in the next sentence, “In fact,
the record reveals that the trial court, based upon Fortune’s prior jury service,
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actually engaged her in questioning to illustrate legal concepts to the venire panel.”
It concludes, “This counters any suggestion that the trial court would have credited
the State’s explanation that Fortune was inattentive or was sending a bad ‘vibe’ in
the courtroom.” Slip Op. at 11–12.
Both the majority’s statement that the trial court did not make a finding on
Fortune’s credibility and its statement that the trial court “actually” engaged
Fortune “to illustrate legal concepts to the venire panel” serve only to justify its
own evaluation of the prosecutor’s credibility and its complete lack of deference to
the trial court’s evaluation and ruling by showing what the trial court “really”
thought about Fortune, and thus to justify its rejection of the trial court’s finding
that the prosecutor’s reasons for striking Fortune were race neutral. In short, the
majority imagines a plausible reason for the trial court to have ruled other than it
did on the defendant’s Batson challenge, in contradiction of the standard set out in
Miller-El, Gibson, and Watkins, which forbids the reviewing court from
substituting itself for the trial court in the third step of the Batson inquiry. See
Miller-El, 545 U.S. at 252, 125 S. Ct. at 2332; Watkins, 245 S.W.3d at 449 n.19;
Gibson, 144 S.W.3d at 534.
Moreover, the majority bases its imagined reason for reaching a ruling
contrary to the ruling of the trial court on a misleading representation of the record.
The trial court did not engage Fortune “to illustrate legal concepts” to the venire in
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order to show its approbation of her as a potential juror capable of instructing the
others, as the majority implies. Instead, the trial court conducted the initial voir
dire before turning it over to counsel for the parties. In that period, at the
beginning of voir dire, the court posed a hypothetical situation to the venire in
which she asked the venire members to suppose that “[t]he State called 50
witnesses. The other side had a chance to ask questions and didn’t do so. So,
everything those 50 people had to say must be the truth. I am going to find this
guy guilty in no time flat and be on my way home.” The court then asked, “Ms.
Fortune, since you’ve been on a jury before, do you think that’s the right approach
the jury should take in that circumstance?” When Fortune replied, “No, Your
Honor,” the court asked, “Why?” Upon receiving the answer, “Because the
evidence has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt,” the court probed further and
then asked another juror, “What do you think about that?” Getting the answer, “I
agree,” the court asked that juror further questions and then thanked both and
explained the jury’s function to the venire. It is extremely misleading to imply, as
the majority does, that the trial court, having heard Fortune’s answer to the
prosecution’s questions about her jury service during voir dire, then turned to
Fortune with approbation of her legal knowledge and experience as a juror as
illustrative of proper juror behavior for the other venire members.
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Unlike the majority, I do not conclude that Fortune’s answers to questions
about what the State would have to prove for her to find the defendant guilty to be
mere questioning to illustrate legal concepts. I take the trial court’s questioning of
Fortune to be its examination of her to determine what jurors who had previously
served thought the role of a juror was. That questioning offered the trial court the
opportunity to hear Fortune’s answers and to observe her demeanor in answering
them, just as the rest of the voir dire offered the trial court the opportunity to
witness all the potential jurors’ answers and demeanor, along with that of counsel
for both sides. Thus, the questioning, among other things, allowed the court to
develop a basis for determining the constitutional validity of a peremptory strike,
should a Batson challenge be made. Likewise, the Batson hearing itself offered the
trial court the opportunity to evaluate the demeanor and credibility of the
prosecutor and to determine whether his concerns about Fortune were valid or
motivated by purposeful discrimination. See Snyder, 552 U.S. at 477, 484–85, 128
S. Ct. at 1208, 1212 (holding that question presented at third step of Batson inquiry
is “whether the defendant has shown purposeful discrimination,” and “best
evidence” is often demeanor of attorney who exercised strike).
The fact that the trial court overruled the defendant’s Batson challenge
following questioning of the prosecutor in response to rebuttal argument by
defense counsel indicates to me that the trial court satisfied herself that the State’s
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concerns about Fortune were justified in light of the court’s own observations and
the answers to her questions both before and during the Batson hearing. Because
the State also struck other potential jurors, both black and white, male and female,
for similar reasons and seated one of three available black jurors on the jury, and
nothing indicates that the trial court was not in a position to evaluate the demeanor
and credibility of both the prosecutor and Fortune, I would defer to the trial court’s
ruling. I see absolutely no “exceptional circumstances” that would justify
overruling the trial court’s determination regarding the propriety of the strike based
on Fortune’s demeanor in answering the State’s questions during voir dire under
the circumstances of this case. See Snyder, 552 U.S. at 477, 128 S. Ct. at 1208.
I would overrule appellant’s third issue, urging his Batson challenge, and I
would affirm the judgment of the trial court.
Evelyn V. Keyes
Justice
Panel consists of Justices Jennings, Keyes, and Higley.
Keyes, J., dissenting.
Publish. TEX. R. APP. P. 47.2(b).
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