Com. v. Hyatt

Citation409 Mass. 689,568 N.E.2d 1148
PartiesCOMMONWEALTH v. Dwayne HYATT.
Decision Date03 April 1991
CourtUnited States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

Carol A. Donovan, Randolph, Committee for Public Counsel Services, for defendant.

Judith A. Cowin, Asst. Dist. Atty., for Com.

Before LIACOS, C.J., and ABRAMS, NOLAN, O'CONNOR and GREANEY, JJ.

O'CONNOR, Justice.

The defendant appeals his convictions of aggravated rape and armed robbery. He seeks a new trial on the grounds that he was erroneously denied a peremptory challenge of a juror; that the prosecutor was allowed an improper challenge; and that certain expert testimony was erroneously admitted in evidence. The Appeals Court affirmed the convictions, 29 Mass.App.Ct. 140, 557 N.E.2d 1172 (1990), and we allowed the defendant's application for further appellate review. We now reverse the convictions and order a new trial.

The defendant is a black man. The victim was a twenty-one year old white woman. There was only one black person in the venire, a woman in her twenties. During the empanelment, the prosecutor challenged the black juror, but the judge disallowed the challenge. When the panel, not yet finalized, consisted of twelve women, including the black juror, and two men, the defendant challenged eight women and one man. The prosecutor objected on the ground that the defendant "challenged each of the young women in the panel except for the black woman, and this appears to be discrimination based on age, sex, and that combined with the age of the victim in this case is what I object to." The judge allowed the defendant's challenges, saying, "There are only two men in the panel. I think the problem arises because of the fourteen, twelve are women. It's almost by necessity that he exercise all of his challenges, challenging more women than men. He challenged one of the two men. I would be more concerned about it if he had a more even distribution of men and women, and he challenged all the women. I will continue to watch the exercise of challenges with this in mind, but I think at this stage, it's too early to draw any inference of discrimination although one of the two men has been challenged."

After the replacement jurors were seated, the panel consisted of seven men and seven women. Of these, the defendant challenged two women, both of whom were white and in their twenties. Left on the panel were the seven men, the black woman in her twenties, and four considerably older women. The prosecutor objected on the ground that the challenged jurors were both young, white women. The judge said that the defendant was exercising challenges in violation of Commonwealth v. Soares, 377 Mass. 461, 490, 387 N.E.2d 499, cert. denied, 444 U.S. 881, 100 S.Ct. 170, 62 L.Ed.2d 110 (1979). Defense counsel said that he challenged the two women because one was a secretary in the House of Representatives and the other lived near the scene of the crime. The judge was not satisfied with that explanation. The judge ruled that the defendant could exercise one, but not both, of the contested challenges, and the defendant did so. Then, at a side bar conference, the judge articulated his reason for having denied one of the defendant's peremptory challenges as follows: "For the record, I would like to note that there are three young ladies of the same age group. Miss [X] who is black was born in 1964. She was not challenged. Ms. [Y] who is white was born in 1966, and she was challenged, and [Ms. Z] who is white was born in 1961. Those three appear to be the only three in that age group. The two whites were both challenged, and that was the reason for the Court's conclusion that a challenge of those [jurors] through peremptory challenges was an abuse of the peremptory challenge and that the explanation given by counsel appeared to the Court to be a pretext and not a valid reason."

The Appeals Court reasoned that "[t]he group identified by the judge consisted of three persons all of whom were young (under age thirty) and female. Within that group two were white and one was black. The group of three was defined by one characteristic--age--that could provide a permitted basis for a peremptory challenge, and one characteristic--gender--that was not a permitted basis. The judge ruled that when the defendant challenged only the two whites and not the entire group of three, he had impermissibly focused on race." Commonwealth v. Hyatt, 29 Mass.App.Ct. 140, 142, 557 N.E.2d 1172 (1990). The Appeals Court concluded that, since the challenges were, at least in part, based on membership in a discrete group identified in art. 1...

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  • Commonwealth v. Andrade
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court
    • October 5, 2021
    ...for purposes of jury selection. See Commonwealth v. Lopes, 478 Mass. 593, 597-598, 91 N.E.3d 1126 (2018) ; Commonwealth v. Hyatt, 409 Mass. 689, 692, 568 N.E.2d 1148 (1991), S.C., 419 Mass. 815, 647 N.E.2d 1168 (1995). To the extent that the prosecutor tended to challenge young jurors, ther......
  • Eiland v. State, s. 903
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    • Court of Special Appeals of Maryland
    • September 1, 1991
    ...peremptory challenge of a female juror. See also People v. Blunt, 162 A.D.2d 86, 561 N.Y.S.2d 90 (App.Div.1990); Commonwealth v. Hyatt, 409 Mass. 689, 568 N.E.2d 1148 (1991); State v. Gonzales, 111 N.M. 590, 808 P.2d 40 (App.1991); DiDonato v. Santini, 232 Cal.App.3d 721, 283 Cal.Rptr. 751 ......
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    • July 11, 2001
    ...1998) (citing Hill v. State, 477 So. 2d 553, 556 (Fla. 1985)); State v. Kauhi, 948 P.2d 1036, 1041 (Haw. 1997); Commonwealth v. Hyatt, 568 N.E.2d 1148, 1150 (Mass. 1991); Commonwealth v. Ingber, 531 A.2d 1101, 1105 (Pa. 1987); State v. Short, 511 S.E.2d 358, 360-61 (S.C. 1999); Johnson v. S......
  • State v. Veal
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    • Iowa Supreme Court
    • May 24, 2019
    ...their own state constitutions. See, e.g. , State v. Levinson , 71 Haw. 492, 795 P.2d 845, 849–50 (1990) ; Commonwealth v. Hyatt , 409 Mass. 689, 568 N.E.2d 1148, 1150 (1991) ; State v. Gonzales , 111 N.M. 590, 808 P.2d 40, 49–50 (N.M. Ct. App. 1991). The United States Supreme Court later fo......
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