Hayes v. State

• Court: Florida Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: PARIENTE
• Citation: Hayes v. State , 94 So. 3d 452 (Fla. 2012)
• Decision Date: 05 April 2012
• Docket Number: No. SC10–2104.,SC10–2104.
• Parties: James William HAYES, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent.

94 So.3d 452

James William HAYES, Petitioner,

v.STATE of Florida, Respondent.

No. SC10–2104.

Supreme Court of Florida.

April 5, 2012.

Nancy A. Daniels, Public Defender, and Gail E. Anderson, Assistant Public Defender, Second Judicial Circuit, Tallahassee, FL, for Petitioner.

Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, and Trisha Meggs Pate, Bureau Chief, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL, for Respondent.

PARIENTE, J.

Peremptory challenges during jury selection are once again the subject of this Court's review. More specifically, we address the misapplication by both the trial court and the First District Court of Appeal in Hayes v. State, 45 So.3d 99 (Fla. 1st DCA 2010), of the procedure this Court set forth in Melbourne v. State, 679 So.2d 759 (Fla.1996), for eliminating discrimination during the exercise of peremptory challenges. In this case, the trial court erred in denying defense counsel's peremptory challenge to a female juror, notwithstanding the undisputed gender-neutral reason counsel proffered (her relationship to law enforcement officers). The trial court mistakenly assessed defense counsel's reason as if it were assessing a challenge for cause and failed to perform the critical third step of the Melbourne procedure, which requires an assessment of the genuineness of counsel's proffered reasons for the strike. Further, the trial court erroneously relieved the State—the opponent of the strike—of its burden to establish that the reason for the challenge, despite being gender-neutral, was pretextual.

Perpetuating these errors, the First District incorrectly deferred to the trial court's nonexistent genuineness inquiry on appeal and then improperly placed the burden of persuasion on the proponent of the challenge, the defendant in this case, to establish that his strike was being exercised in a nondiscriminatory manner. While deference to a trial judge's findings of genuineness is necessary, deference to a trial judge's ruling that lacks any record support is an invitation to produce arbitrary results. As the State's concession of error before the First District recognized, the proper remedy for the trial court's denial of the defendant's peremptory challenge in this case was to reverse and remand for a new trial.

Because the First District's decision in Hayes affirming the denial of the defendant's peremptory challenge is contrary to and results in a misapplication of Melbourne's well-established precedent, we have jurisdiction. Seeart. V, § 3(b)(3), Fla. Const.; see also Jaimes v. State, 51 So.3d 445, 446 (Fla.2010) (identifying misapplication of decisions as a basis for express and direct conflict under article V, section 3(b)(3) of the Florida Constitution); Wallace v. Dean, 3 So.3d 1035, 1040 (Fla.2009) (same). For the reasons more fully explained below, we quash the decision of the First District.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Hayes was tried on three counts of armed robbery and three counts of false imprisonment with a weapon or firearm. While questioning prospective jurors during jury selection, the prosecutor asked the venire about whether any of the jurors had close friends or family who worked in law enforcement. Juror Robin Haupt, a female, responded that she had two out-of-state family members who worked in law enforcement, but agreed that those relationships would not cause her any “undue bias[ ].” Two other women, a juror and the alternate juror, also answered that they had family members who worked in law enforcement, but like juror Haupt, each acknowledged that it would not cause them to be biased or afford any special credibility to law enforcement officers.

At the conclusion of voir dire, defense counsel exercised two peremptory challenges without objection. The court then recited the names of the six jurors and the one alternate juror selected, of which five were women and two were men. Thereafter, the State and the defense each exercised a backstrike ¹ of an additional juror, eliminating one man and one woman from the jury.²

Defense counsel then moved to peremptorily backstrike juror Haupt. The prosecutor objected, and the following exchange ensued:

[PROSECUTOR]: Your Honor, is it out of line if the State requests a gender neutral reason?

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: A what?

[PROSECUTOR]: A gender neutral reason for using a strike against this female.

THE COURT: Counsel?

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: I don't have a gender neutral reason. She has some relatives or whatnot in law enforcement. She really didn't answer many questions, at all. She didn't say much of anything. To me, she's somewhat of an unknown quantity.

THE COURT: Counsel, anything else?

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: Nothing.

[PROSECUTOR]: Your Honor, she did indicate that she knew law enforcement officers, but she indicated affirmatively that that would have no bearing on her potential as a juror.

THE COURT: All right. Counsel, while you've identified, we talked about—and I'm not sure that it applies as to a gender neutral reason to strike a potential juror in this manner. She did indicate she knew two law enforcement officers, but it created no problem for her. Otherwise, she had no other comments relating to this case. ...

...

THE COURT: All right. Any others?

[DEFENSE COUNSEL ³]: Your Honor, not to be difficult, but to go back to the gender neutral reason. If we strike that juror, the next juror in line was a woman, anyway. So it wouldn't change the gender makeup of the jury.

THE COURT: I'm aware of that, but each juror has the right to serve at their own right.

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: What?

THE COURT: I'm aware of that, but each juror has the right to serve, at their own right, absent a sufficient basis to exclude them.

(Emphasis added.) Without conducting any inquiry as to the genuineness of defense counsel's explanation, and without any attempt by the State to demonstrate that the reason given was not gender-neutral or was pretextual, the trial court denied defense counsel's motion to use a peremptory challenge to strike juror Haupt.

The next day, before the jury was sworn in, defense counsel again raised the issue of the trial court's denial of his attempt to peremptorily backstrike juror Haupt. At that time, defense counsel provided the trial court with another opportunity to revisit the decision to disallow the peremptory challenge and pointed out his recollection that the next ten jurors after juror Haupt were all female:

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: ... I'm going to renew my objection about the Court's denial of my attempt to strike the juror during jury selection after the State asked for a gender neutral reason. Do you want to go ahead and address that?

THE COURT: Your issue is preserved—well, I should say—let me rephrase that. Your issue was raised during the jury selection process, so.

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: Right. I actually wanted to revisit that process because I don't believe that we followed the right procedure in that situation.

THE COURT: All right.

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: There is a case called State versus Melbourne [ Melbourne v. State ], 679 So.2d 759. It lays out a three-step procedure for dealing with that situation. I don't think we quite followed it so I just wanted to clarify it. Step one—step one of the procedure is that we—that the State make a timely objection, which he did, so we go to the second step. The second step is that I have to present a facially gender neutral reason for the strike. The case law says that a reason is gender neutral on its face if the reason does not involve gender, and then the Court has to rule on whether or not my reason was gender neutral in the face. I don't recall the Court did that or not.

THE COURT: I concluded that your reason was not genuine under the circumstances, which presumes that it was gender—or excuse me, a gender neutral reason—explanation. Now that does not address your client's issue about wanting other people, but on the basis that was stated as the general ground, that's presumed in that—going to the next step.

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: Okay, and step three was as you stated. If the Court finds the reason is gender neutral, then the Court has to decide if it was pretext or genuine based on all the circumstances. And I just want to reiterate that that—I think my reason was gender neutral because the juror that I had stricken before that was a female, the one that was going to come under the jury act [sic] after my strike would have been a female, and I think the next ten jurors were all females. So I don't see how that could, with all due respect, possibly have been non gender neutral, or how could it then be [pretextual] on the basis of gender?

THE COURT: Do you have anything else?

[PROSECUTOR]: Your Honor, the State would only put forward that all of these arguments were made at the bench at jury selection and the Court did make a ruling at that time.

THE COURT: Not all of them, but I've made my observations and rulings. They stand. Thank you.

(Emphasis added.) Once again, the prosecutor did not offer anything in response to indicate that defense counsel's peremptory challenge was pretextual. The jury, as empanelled, was ultimately composed of six jurors—five women and one man—with one female alternate.

On appeal, Hayes argued that the trial court erred in denying his peremptory challenge of juror Haupt, warranting a new trial.⁴ He specifically asserted that the trial court's basis for denying the strike was inapplicable to peremptory challenges because it related to a challenge for cause and that the record did not support the court's finding that defense counsel's gender-neutral reason was pretextual under step three of the three-part procedure this Court set forth in Melbourne. The State conceded error, agreeing with Hayes that the trial court engaged in the wrong inquiry and urging the First District to remand for a new trial. The State candidly acknowledged in its brief that

[i]n the case at bar, it is clear that the trial court mistakenly considered the challenge as if...