State v. Wilson Clarifies When Batson Analysis Moves to Step Three

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Article 1, Section 26 of the North Carolina Constitution prohibit the exercise of peremptory challenges to strike prospective jurors based on their race. See Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 89 (1986), as modified by Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. 400 (1991). Batson established a three-step framework for trial courts to apply in determining whether a peremptory strike was impermissibly motivated by a juror’s race. Batson’s three-step framework. At step one, the party objecting to the strike must present a prima facie showing of purposeful discrimination. The trial court may rule on this matter without making extensive findings. State v. Campbell, 384 N.C. 126, 138 (2023). At step two, the burden shifts to the party exercising the peremptory challenge to provide a race-neutral reason for the strike. After the striking party offers a race-neutral explanation, the objecting party may attempt to show the other party’s explanations for the challenge are pretextual. At step three, the trial court must determine, based on the totality of the evidence, whether the objecting party has established that it is more likely than not that the strike was motivated in substantial part by discriminatory intent. A trial court may not summarily rule at step three but must instead explain how it weighed the totality of the circumstances surrounding the prosecution’s use of peremptory challenges. State v. Hobbs, 374 N.C. 345, 358 (2020) (Hobbs I). Mootness. When the State provides race-neutral reasons under step two and the trial court considers them and rules at [...]