In the recent case of State v. Hurd, the N.C. Court of Appeals upheld a claim by a prosecutor that a defendant’s peremptory strike of a prospective White juror was racially discriminatory, which is the second time that our appellate courts have upheld such a claim. This post briefly reviews the legal requirements for challenges under Batson, analyzes the court’s reasons for sustaining the prosecutor’s challenge in Hurd, and considers the lack of appellate decisions in North Carolina upholding defense challenges to prosecutors’ peremptory strikes of jurors of color. What is a Batson challenge? Racial discrimination in the selection of trial jurors has been recognized as unconstitutional for more than a century and violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution and article I, section 26 of the N.C. Constitution. This protection developed in response to laws and policies restricting jury service to White people and excluding African Americans. See Raising Issues of Race in North Carolina Criminal Cases, Section 7.2B (Development of Law) (UNC School of Government, 2014). In Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), the U.S. Supreme Court established a three-step test for assessing whether a prosecutor used a peremptory challenge for a discriminatory reason: 1) the defendant must make a prima facie showing that the State’s strike was discriminatory; 2) the burden then shifts to the State to offer a race-neutral explanation for the strike; 3) the trial court decides whether the defendant proved purposeful discrimination. In Georgia v. McCollum, 505 U.S. 42 (1992), the court [...]
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