People v. Knowles

• Decision Date: 28 October 2010
• Citation: 911 N.Y.S.2d 483,79 A.D.3d 16
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Shakeem KNOWLES, Appellant.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

911 N.Y.S.2d 483 79 A.D.3d 16 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Shakeem KNOWLES, Appellant. Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department, New York. Oct. 28, 2010.

Mitch Kessler, Cohoes, for appellant.

Robert M. Carney, District Attorney, Schenectady (Gerald A. Dwyer of counsel), for respondent.

Before: SPAIN, J.P., LAHTINEN, KAVANAGH, STEIN and GARRY, JJ.

SPAIN, J.P.

Appeal from a judgment of the County Court of Schenectady County (Giardino, J.), rendered December 10, 2008, upon a verdict convicting defendant of the crimes of murder in the second degree, robbery in the first degree, criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree.

Following a retrial, defendant was again convicted by a jury of felony murder, robbery in the first degree, criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree. The convictions stem from an incident summarized in a decision of this Court on defendant's prior appeal in which a new trial was ordered due to certain trial errors (42 A.D.3d 662, 839 N.Y.S.2d 324 [2007] ). The evidence at trial established that defendant fatally stabbed Jason Battaglia on March 14, 2002 outside of an apartment building in the City of Schenectady, Schenectady County in a dispute over a drug sale. Upon his convictions, County Court imposed an aggregate sentence of 25 years to life in prison, with five years of postrelease supervision. Defendant now appeals.

Initially, defendant, who is black, contends that his right to equal protection of the laws was violated when County Court denied his Batson objections ( see Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 [1986] ) to the People's exercise of peremptory challenges toexclude all three black jurors from the venire. Defendant argues that the race-neutral reasons offered by the People for these strikes were pretexts for race discrimination. The transcript of the voir dire reflects that during the second round of jury selection, after jurors were removed for cause, the People peremptorily struck both remaining black jurors, juror Nos. 81 and 224; there were reportedly no black people in the first round. Defendant raised a race-based Batson objection. In response to County Court's directive to state his reasons, the prosecutor explained that he sought to exclude juror No. 81 because her responses indicated that she oversees an educational opportunity program in which the victim's mother is a student, and she may be called to testify (she was, in fact, the first trial witness). He reasoned that he did not "want to take a chance that something in that relationship affects [the] juror's outlook on this case." The defense made no argument that this reason was not race neutral or was pretextual. With regard to juror No. 224, the prosecutor stated that his reason for striking her was that she "volunteered that she reads the Bible"; he emphasized that there was nothing wrong with this, but that it was "an unusual reading choice ... that suggests to me that she might be a person who is on the spectrum of forgiveness rather than judgment." Defense counsel argued that the reason given was a pretext as there were many white jurors who reported being active in their churches who were not stricken, and the prosecutor had not asked follow-up questions of juror No. 224 on this point. The prosecutor explained that he had purposefully exercised restraint in not probing this juror's religious beliefs, which he believed "people often are reluctant to talk about." He further clarified that being active in a church "can mean many things ... often very secular ... community-based things" which he considered a "positive" attribute in a juror, as distinguished from a person who reads the Bible, which he viewed to be a "flag" that the juror might be prone toward forgiveness. The court concluded that the reasons were race neutral and were genuine reasons for the exclusion of these jurors and not pretextual ones, and denied defendant's objection.

During the third round of jury selection, defendant again raised a Batson objection after the People exercised a peremptory challenge to strike the only remaining black person on the panel, juror No. 11. At County Court's direction, the prosecutor elucidated that the District Attorney's office had prosecuted herrelatives, including at least one—and likely two—of her siblings, and that she appeared to be evasive about not knowing the ages of those siblings when the prosecutor attempted to connect her to them. The court accepted this reason, finding it to be reasonable.

Under the three-step test formulated under Batson and its progeny to determine whether peremptory challenges are being employed as a tool of invidious discrimination, the party challenging the use of peremptories must make out a prima facie case of purposeful discrimination and, if accomplished, the nonmovant must come forward with race neutral reasons for each of the peremptories challenged; "once race-neutral reasons are given, the inference of discrimination is overcome" ( People v. Smocum, 99 N.Y.2d 418, 422, 757 N.Y.S.2d 239, 786 N.E.2d 1275 [2003] ). "The third step of the Batson inquiry requires the trial court to make an ultimate[factual] determination on the issue of discriminatory intent based on all of the facts and circumstances presented ... focused on the credibility of the race-neutral reasons" ( id. at 422, 757 N.Y.S.2d 239, 786 N.E.2d 1275 [emphases added] ).

The first prong is not in issue. Where, as here, "a prosecutor has offered a race-neutral explanation for the peremptory challenges and the trial court has ruled on the ultimate question of intentional discrimination, the preliminary issue of whether the defendant had made a prima facie showing becomes moot" ( Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. 352, 359, 111 S.Ct. 1859, 114 L.Ed.2d 395 [1991]; see People v. Smocum, 99 N.Y.2d at 423, 757 N.Y.S.2d 239, 786 N.E.2d 1275; People v. Fulton, 24 A.D.3d 959, 962, 807 N.Y.S.2d 153 [2005], lv. denied 6 N.Y.3d 847, 816 N.Y.S.2d 753, 849 N.E.2d 976 [2006], cert. denied 549 U.S. 1037, 127 S.Ct. 591, 166 L.Ed.2d 440 [2006] ). As to the second prong of the analysis, a neutral explanation in this context is "an explanation based on something other than the race of the juror" and "the issue is the facial validity of the prosecutor's explanation" ( Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. at 360, 111 S.Ct. 1859). The reasons need not be "persuasive, or even plausible" to others ( Purkett v. Elem, 514 U.S. 765, 768, 115 S.Ct. 1769, 131 L.Ed.2d 834 [1995]; see People v. Morgan, 24 A.D.3d 950, 951, 806 N.Y.S.2d 742 [2005], lv. denied 6 N.Y.3d 815, 812 N.Y.S.2d 455, 845 N.E.2d 1286 [2006] ) and may be "ill-founded" ( People v. Allen, 86 N.Y.2d 101, 109, 629 N.Y.S.2d 1003, 653 N.E.2d 1173 [1995] ), so long as they do not violate equal protection ( see id.; see also Purkett v. Elem, 514 U.S. at 769, 115 S.Ct. 1769; Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. at 359, 111 S.Ct. 1859). Here, discriminatory intent was not inherent in any of the prosecutor's explanations, and County Court correctly determined that all of the reasons were, in fact, entirely race-neutral and overcame any inference of discrimination ( see Purkett v. Elem, 514 U.S. at 768, 115 S.Ct. 1769).

Thus, we turn to the third and final prong, the trial court's "difficult burden of assessing prosecutors' motives"( Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. at 105, 106 S.Ct. 1712 [Marshall, J., concurring] ). Here, County Court determined that the prosecutor's stated justifications for striking these jurors were not a pretext for racial discrimination and that defendant had failed to prove purposeful racial discrimination ( see Purkett v. Elem, 514 U.S. at 767, 115 S.Ct. 1769; People v. Wells, 7 N.Y.3d 51, 58, 817 N.Y.S.2d 590, 850 N.E.2d 637 [2006] ). "[T]he trial court's decision on the ultimate question of discriminatory intent represents a finding of fact of the sort accorded great deference on appeal" ( Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. at 364, 111 S.Ct. 1859) because it "largely will turn on evaluation of credibility" ( Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. at 98 n. 21, 106 S.Ct. 1712), i.e., typically, "the decisive question will be whether counsel's race-neutral explanation[s] ... should be believed. There will seldom be much evidence bearing on that issue, and the best evidence often will be the demeanor of the attorney who exercises the challenge" ( Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. at 365, 111 S.Ct. 1859 [emphasis added] ).

County Court expressly believed that all of the prosecutor's stated reasons were genuine and not pretextual, and we discern no basis upon which to disagree with that firsthand factual finding. As to juror No. 81, defendant never argued that the reason given for her exclusion—she oversaw the educational program for the victim's mother—was pretextual and, thus, that claim is unpreserved ( see People v. James, 99 N.Y.2d 264, 271-272, 755 N.Y.S.2d 43 [2002] ). By not respondingto the reason given, defense counsel did not meet his burden of showing pretext ( see People v. Skervin, 13 A.D.3d 661, 662, 786 N.Y.S.2d 597 [2004], lv. denied 5 N.Y.3d 833, 804 N.Y.S.2d 47, 837 N.E.2d 746 [2005] ). Likewise, the prosecutor's exercise of a peremptory challenge as to juror No. 11 based upon the good faith belief that he had prosecuted several relatives with the same name, including siblings (and that she may have been evasive), has, when credited, been found to be not racially motivated ( see People v. Morgan, 24 A.D.3d at 951, 806 N.Y.S.2d 742; People v. Walker, 285 A.D.2d 660, 664, 727 N.Y.S.2d 731 [2001], lv. denied 97 N.Y.2d 659, 737 N.Y.S.2d 60, 762 N.E.2d 938 [2001], cert. denied 535 U.S. 1064, 122 S.Ct. 1932, 152 L.Ed.2d 838 [2002] ). County Court's conclusion that this explanation was reasonable and nonpretextual is fully supported and will not be disturbed.

With regard...