Lawrence Ex Rel. R.A. v. Carilion Medical Center

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 09-1761
NICKESHIA M. LAWRENCE, in her own right and as parent and
next friend of R.A., an infant,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
v.
CARILION MEDICAL CENTER, d/b/a Carilion Roanoke Community
Hospital,
Defendant - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western
District of Virginia, at Roanoke. James C. Turk, Senior
District Judge. (7:08-cv-00108-jct)
Submitted: February 8, 2010 Decided: March 4, 2010
Before NIEMEYER and KING, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
James J. O’Keeffe, IV, S.D. Roberts Moore, Monica T. Monday,
GENTRY, LOCKE, RAKES & MOORE, Roanoke, Virginia, for Appellant.
Charles L. Downs, Jr., Robert M. Doherty, WOOTENHART, PLC,
Roanoke, Virginia, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Nickeshia M. Lawrence sued Carilion Medical Center
d/b/a Carilion Roanoke Community Hospital (“Carilion”), for
medical malpractice in failing to perform a Caesarian section
when Lawrence was giving birth to her son. After a five-day
trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Carilion.
Lawrence appeals the district court’s entry of judgment,
claiming that the court erred when it rejected her Batson v.
Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), challenge to Carilion’s peremptory
strike of an African-American juror. 1 We affirm.
As the Supreme Court held in Batson, the use of a
peremptory challenge for a racially discriminatory purpose
offends the Equal Protection Clause. Id. at 89. We give “great
deference” to the trial court’s findings as to whether a Batson
violation occurred, and we review the district court’s findings
for clear error. Jones v. Plaster, 57 F.3d 417, 421 (4th Cir.
1995).
A three-step process is used to analyze a Batson
claim:
First, the defendant must make a prima facie showing
that the prosecutor has exercised peremptory
challenges on the basis of race. Second, if the
1
In Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U.S. 614(1991), the Supreme Court extended the Batson rule to civil
cases.
2
requisite showing has been made, the burden shifts to
the prosecutor to articulate a race-neutral
explanation for striking the jurors in question.
Finally, the trial court must determine whether the
defendant has carried his burden of proving purposeful
discrimination.
Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. 352, 358-59 (1991) (citations
omitted). When conducting this analysis, “the decisive question
[is] whether counsel’s race-neutral explanation . . . should be
believed.” Id. at 365.
Here, Carilion’s counsel stated that he struck the
Africian-American juror because she had had a Caesarian section
and he wanted to avoid jurors with this characteristic.
Carilion’s counsel also struck two other white jurors who had
undergone Caesarian sections. By articulating a race-neutral
reason for the strike, Carilion satisfied its burden at the
second step of the analysis.
At the third step, the burden shifted to Lawrence to
prove that the explanation given was “a pretext for
discrimination.” United States v. Farrior, 535 F.3d 210, 221
(4th Cir. 2008), cert. denied, 129 S. Ct. 743 (2008). The party
must “show both that [counsel’s stated reasons for the strike]
were merely pretextual and that race was the real reason for the
strike.” United States v. McMillon, 14 F.3d 948, 953 (4th Cir.
1994). In making this showing, the party “may rely on all
relevant circumstances to raise an inference of purposeful
3
discrimination.” Miller-El v. Dretke, 545 U.S. 231, 240 (2005)
(internal citation and quotation marks omitted).
Here, Lawrence did not challenge Carilion’s race-
neutral explanation for striking the African-American juror.
The failure to argue pretext after the challenged strike has
been explained constitutes a waiver of the initial Batson
challenge. See Davis v. Baltimore Gas & Elec. Co., 160 F.3d
1023, 1027 (4th Cir. 1998). Even if there were no waiver,
Lawrence failed to establish that race was the actual reason
Carilion’s counsel struck the African-American juror. 2
Because the district court did not clearly err in
rejecting Lawrence’s Batson challenge, we affirm. We dispense
with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are
adequately presented in the materials before the court and
argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
2
Lawrence points out that one white juror who had had two
Caesarian sections was seated on the jury. Her procedures
however, occurred some twenty years prior to the trial. Because
each party was limited to three peremptory strikes, we find it
entirely reasonable that Carilion’s counsel chose to leave on
the jury the woman whose Caesarian sections had occurred so
remotely. See 28 U.S.C. § 1870 (2006).
4