Guzman v. State

• Decision Date: 22 May 2002
• Docket Number: No. 1101-00.,1101-00.
• Citation: 85 S.W.3d 242
• Parties: Benito GUZMAN, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

85 S.W.3d 242

Benito GUZMAN, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas.

No. 1101-00.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas. En Banc.

May 22, 2002.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

C. Wayne Huff, Dallas, for Appellant.

D. Prichard Bevis, Jr., Asst. DA, Dallas, Matthew Paul, State's Atty., Austin, for State.

Before the court en banc.

OPINION

COCHRAN, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, joined by KELLER, P.J., KEASLER, HERVEY and HOLCOMB, JJ.

We granted the State's Petition for Discretionary Review to re-examine the so-called "dual motivation" defense to a Batson¹ peremptory strike challenge.² We reaffirm our prior plurality opinion in Hill v. State³ and hold that when the motives behind a challenged peremptory strike are "mixed," i.e., both impermissible (race or gender-based) and permissible (race and gender-neutral), if the striking party shows that he would have struck the juror based solely on the neutral reasons, then the strike does not violate the juror's Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection of the law.

I.

The State charged appellant with capital murder for intentionally or knowingly causing the death of a child under the age of six years. The State did not seek the death penalty, and thus the parties conducted a general voir dire of the entire jury panel rather than the individual questioning of jurors required in a death penalty trial. At the close of voir dire, appellant challenged the State's use of peremptory strikes against six venirepersons, all of whom were either Hispanic or African American. The State then gave reasons for all of its strikes. Only the strike of juror number 17 — Mr. Leacher — is at issue in this appeal. The relevant exchange follows:

State: Number 17, together with Mr. — number 15, Mr. Gallegos, they are the only two single males on the panel. It's the State's contention-single males with no children.

It's the State's contention that this being a case that involves family violence, violence against a child, we prefer to have probably not only women but also individuals who have children who are going to be able to comprehend the issues that are going to be at hand.

My co-counsel as well as myself and [another prosecutor] also noted that several times during the voir dire during the Court's voir dire that number 17, Mr. Leacher, fell asleep or shut his eyes for long extended periods of time.

* * *

Court: [Defense counsel], anything further?

Defense: We would add in addition to our objection on juror number 17 that the State noted that he was struck because he was a male. We would argue that is also a constitutionally impermissible basis for a strike.

Court: The Court also notes that the State struck five females. Anything further from either side?

State: Nothing further from the State. Defense: No.

Court: The Court finds that the State has not exercised their peremptory challenges in a racially discriminatory way.

Your request is denied.

The State noted the ultimate composition of the jury:

State: Because we are at the conclusion, Your Honor, of the Batson hearing, now that we have had a chance to see the actual composition of the jury as seated, we would like the record to reflect that by my count the jury is comprised of seven females, five males, one African American, one Hispanic and one Asian American.

After hearing all of the evidence at trial, the jury returned a verdict of guilty, and the trial court sentenced appellant to life imprisonment. On direct appeal, appellant challenged the legal sufficiency of the evidence and the adverse ruling on his Batson objection. The court of appeals concluded that the evidence was legally sufficient, but nonetheless reversed appellant's conviction. The court of appeals held that the trial court should have sustained appellant's Batson challenge to juror number 17 because the prosecutor's dual motive for striking that juror was not, as a matter of law, gender-neutral.⁴ We granted review to determine whether that conclusion was correct.

II.

A. Batson Prohibits Gender or Race-Based Peremptory Strikes.

Under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, a litigant may not exercise a peremptory challenge based on the juror's gender (J.E.B. v. Alabama ex. rel. T.B.), ethnicity (Hernandez v. New York), or race (Batson v. Kentucky).⁵ Although Batson involved a racebased peremptory strike, courts analyze all allegedly discriminatory strikes according to the steps laid out in Batson. First, the party opposing a particular peremptory strike must establish a prima facie case of racial or gender discrimination. Second, the burden of production then shifts to the proponent of the strike to offer a race or gender-neutral explanation for that strike. If the proponent offers a race or gender-neutral explanation, the trial court must then decide whether the opponent has proved purposeful racial or gender discrimination.⁶

In Purkett v. Elem, the Supreme Court explained that the issue in step two is the facial validity of the prosecutor's explanation, and "[u]nless a discriminatory intent is inherent in the prosecutor's explanation, the reason offered will be deemed race neutral."⁷ Thus, it is only at step three "that the persuasiveness of the justification becomes relevant-the step in which the trial court determines whether the opponent of the strike has carried his burden of proving purposeful discrimination."⁸

B. The "Dual Motivation" Scenario.

What is the result when, at step two of a Batson challenge, the proponent offers several different reasons for his peremptory strike, one of which is not race or gender neutral? Should the trial court automatically determine that the opponent has established purposeful discrimination?

In Powers v. Palacios, the Texas Supreme Court apparently answered the latter question in the affirmative.⁹ That court held that a strike motivated in part by race (or gender) violates equal protection.¹⁰ Specifically, the court held that "equal protection is denied when race is a factor in counsel's exercise of a peremptory challenge to a prospective juror."¹¹

Conversely, in Hill v. State,¹² a plurality of this Court concluded "that race may be a factor coexisting with a non-racial reason for a strike, however, race may not be the reason for the strike."¹³ The Hill plurality adopted the "dual motivation" or "mixed motives" approach.¹⁴ It emphasized that the fact that a litigant mentions race in his explanation for a peremptory challenge is indicative, but not conclusive, of purposeful discrimination in the case.¹⁵ In a concurring opinion, four judges rejected the dual motivation approach and advocated a "bright line" rule: equal protection is denied whenever race is a factor in the exercise of a peremptory strike, because "one simply cannot articulate a `race-neutral' explanation for exercising a peremptory strike when race is a part of that explanation."¹⁶ Under that bright line rule, any non-neutral justification fatally taints any neutral justification.¹⁷ Just as one bad apple spoils the barrel, one non-neutral reason taints all neutral reasons.

Understandably, Texas courts of appeals have frequently erred on the side of caution, declining to follow the plurality opinion in Hill. Instead, these courts of appeals have continued to follow pre-Hill courts of appeals' cases which adhere to the "taint" view¹⁸ and the Powers v. Palacios decision.¹⁹

Nonetheless, the "taint view" is not constitutionally required by the Supreme Court. Batson itself held that "the Equal Protection Clause forbids the prosecutor to challenge potential jurors solely on account of their race or on the assumption that black jurors as a group will be unable impartially to consider the State's case against a black defendant."²⁰ Similarly, in J.E.B., the Court held that "the Equal Protection Clause prohibits discrimination in jury selection on the basis of gender, or on the assumption that an individual will be biased in a particular case for no reason other than the fact that the person happens to be a woman or happens to be a man."²¹ The Supreme Court has set out the core of its test: if a peremptory strike is motivated by race or gender, that strike violates the Equal Protection Clause. However, the Supreme Court has not yet addressed "dual motivation" or "mixed motives" analysis in the Batson context.²²

B. The Federal "Dual Motivation" Analysis.

Federal courts, faced with mixed motives peremptory strikes, have turned to the Supreme Court's equal protection precedents, the very jurisprudence upon which Batson was based. The Supreme Court has made it clear that conduct which is motivated by an improper gender or racial purpose unconstitutionally violates the affected person's right to equal protection. However, if the actor offers proof that he would have acted identically in the absence of the improper motive, the factfinder is entitled to conclude that the action was not done because of a discriminatory purpose.²³ In other words, dual motivation is a defense which rebuts the opponent's prima facie case of purposeful discrimination. The federal circuits have used dual motivation analysis because, combined with Batson pretext analysis, it catches nothing more or less than what the Supreme Court requires — those strikes which are made because of race or gender.²⁴

For example, an employer might fire a male receptionist because he prefers female receptionists. This is an improper gender-related motive. However, if the employer shows that he would have fired the receptionist, even if he had been a female, because the employee was rude, arrived late, lost mail messages, and could not operate the telephone or computer systems, the action is not based on an improper motive.²⁵ The action is fully supported by permissible, gender-neutral reasons, although there may be some improper motives mixed in. An improper motive does not invalidate an otherwise rationally supported and...