People v. Wilson

• Decision Date: 29 June 2015
• Docket Number: Supreme Court Case No. 12SC1027
• Citation: 351 P.3d 1126
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Petitioner v. Derrick Demetrus WILSON, Respondent
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

351 P.3d 1126

The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Petitioner

v.Derrick Demetrus WILSON, Respondent

Supreme Court Case No. 12SC1027

Supreme Court of Colorado.

June 29, 2015

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing July 20, 2015

Attorneys for Petitioner: Cynthia H. Coffman, Attorney General, Joseph G. Michaels, Assistant Attorney General, Denver, Colorado.

Attorney for Respondent: Carolyn A. Blanchard, Crested Butte, Colorado.

En Banc

Opinion

JUSTICE BOATRIGHT delivered the Opinion of the Court.

¶ 1 This case concerns the appropriate resolution of a Batson challenge. The petitioner, Derrick Demetrus Wilson, objected to the prosecutor's use of a peremptory strike to excuse a black veniremember and argued that the strike violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as interpreted in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986). The trial court then allowed the prosecutor to articulate a race-neutral reason for the strike. She explained that the prospective juror appeared uncomfortable with DNA evidence and the lack of eyewitness identification. Defense counsel responded that the prospective juror's responses indicated “the exact opposite,” but the trial court accepted the prosecutor's explanation and denied Wilson's Batson challenge. The jury later found Wilson guilty of sexual assault, second-degree kidnapping, and unlawful sexual contact. Wilson appealed, and the court of appeals held that the trial court clearly erred in denying his Batson challenge. People v. Wilson, 2012 COA 163M, ¶ 3, ––– P.3d ––––, as modified on denial of reh'g (Nov. 29, 2012). The court of appeals noted that the record refuted the prosecutor's characterization of the prospective juror's voir dire and concluded that this inconsistency “necessarily establishe[d]” a Batson violation. Id. at ¶ 18.

¶ 2 We granted the People's petition for certiorari to review the court of appeals' determination of clear error, and we now reverse. We hold that a prosecutor's error in recollection does not compel a finding of purposeful discrimination in contravention of the Equal Protection Clause as interpreted in Batson. Rather, the Batson analysis requires the trial court to assess the credibility of the proponent of a peremptory strike and determine whether to believe her race-neutral explanation. Unless the opponent of the strike can prove purposeful discrimination, the trial court should deny the Batson challenge. On appeal, a reviewing court should defer to the trial court's credibility determination and reverse only for clear error. Because the trial court in this case did not clearly err by denying Wilson's Batson challenge, we reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and remand to that court for consideration of the remaining issues on appeal.

I. Facts and Proceedings Below

¶ 3 In August 2008, the Denver Police Department linked Wilson to a five-year-old cold case by matching his DNA to evidence recovered from the victim. As a result, the People charged Wilson with sexual assault, unlawful sexual contact, second-degree kidnapping, and three habitual offender counts. Wilson pleaded not guilty. When jury selection began, the court asked prospective jurors about their ability to serve on a jury, whether they knew any of the witnesses, and whether they could follow the court's instructions. The prosecutor then questioned prospective jurors about their impressions of DNA evidence, whether a victim's inability to identify her assailant would give them pause, and other matters related to the prospective jurors' attitudes toward Wilson's case.

¶ 4 Some members of the venire expressed misgivings about the reliability of DNA evidence; others were suspicious that the victim of a crime could not identify the perpetrator. Mr. E., a black man against whom the prosecutor exercised the challenged peremptory strike, had the following conversation with the prosecutor:

The prosecutor: Mr. E., ... [d]o you have confidence in scientific evidence?

Mr. E.: Yes, I do.

The prosecutor: And would it cause you any pause that the witness may not be able to identify her attacker?

Mr. E.: That would.

The prosecutor: Okay. Let's talk about that a little bit. Do you think there are crimes that are committed when nobody is around?

Mr. E.: Yes.

The prosecutor: Okay. And let's say, for example somebody broke into your house, you weren't there, so you became the victim of a burglary. But you weren't there, so you don't know who it was.

Mr. E.: Okay.

The prosecutor: If that person left a fingerprint or some DNA evidence behind, would you be comfortable in prosecuting that case?

Mr. E.: I think I would in that case, yes.

The prosecutor: Let's assume that in this case, the surprise—it's dark, and people don't get a good enough look at the attacker to make a positive identification. Does that ... in and of itself make you think that we can't prove these charges?

Mr. E.: Not in and of itself, no.

The prosecutor: Okay. If we can prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt identification via scientific evidence, not through eyewitness testimony, and you, of course, have to weigh the value of our evidence, but if we can do that, would you be comfortable in returning a verdict of guilty?

Mr. E.: I believe so.

¶ 5 After briefly questioning the next prospective juror, the prosecutor also asked Mr. N. about his confidence in DNA. Mr. N. initially stated that “there is a margin of error with DNA that is not beyond reasonable.” But when the prosecutor asked if he could approach the process “with an open mind” and “be convinced that DNA is valuable evidence,” Mr. N. replied that he “could be convinced if the margin of error is small enough.”

¶ 6 After both sides finished questioning the jury, the prosecutor used her first peremptory strike to excuse Mr. E. Wilson's defense counsel immediately requested a bench conference, where he challenged the strike under Batson and argued that the prosecutor struck Mr. E. because of his race. The prosecutor responded by explaining her belief that Mr. E. might be unwilling to find Wilson guilty based on DNA evidence alone:

The biggest concern was that [Mr. E.] was very uncomfortable with the lack of eyewitness identification. That he was not sure about the science of DNA, and if the victim could not identify someone ... the DNA in and of itself is not enough. I think I've already said this, but it was his discomfort with the DNA evidence and his concern about the ability to return a guilty verdict if, in fact, the victim could not do an eyewitness identification in the case.

The defense countered that Mr. E. had indicated “the exact opposite”: that he was “comfortable” with DNA evidence and the lack of eyewitness identification. The court accepted the prosecutor's justification and denied Wilson's Batson challenge, stating:

[I]n terms of the DNA, he kind of waffled back and forth. But what I heard specifically on the ID issue is that there was a general question where all the jurors said, Yeah, cases get decided every day, burglary for example, and [the prosecutor] used this with a different juror particularly; I can't remember this juror.

He hesitated for an extended period, and when responding to the question about the ID and the inability of the complaining witness to make an ID of the suspect here, he indicated some concern or question about it.

The Court is satisfied that the prosecution has stated an appropriate basis to excuse Mr. [E.] on that basis.

The prosecutor did not use any more peremptory challenges. Wilson, meanwhile exercised all six peremptory challenges to which he was statutorily entitled. See §§ 16–10–104, –105, C.R.S. (2014). Each time Wilson used a peremptory challenge, the prosecutor accepted the jury panel. Through this process, twelve jurors and one alternate juror were selected. The record does not indicate the racial makeup of the jury.

¶ 7 Over the course of the five-day trial, the defense challenged the prosecutor's theory that Wilson was the attacker. Although a prosecution expert testified that there was a less than one-in-fifteen-trillion chance that the DNA found on the victim belonged to someone unrelated to Wilson, Wilson disputed the accuracy of these results. He also questioned witnesses about the victim's inability to identify her assailant. She could describe the man who attacked her only by his race, clothing, and car, and she had initially identified another man as her assailant, later telling police that a third man, whom she saw in a photographic lineup, had features similar to her assailant's. The jury nevertheless found Wilson guilty of sexual assault, unlawful sexual contact, and second-degree kidnapping. At a later hearing, the court designated Wilson a sexually violent predator, convicted him of three habitual offender counts in addition to the three substantive counts, and sentenced him to consecutive prison terms of ninety-six-years-to-life for sexual assault and ninety-six years for second-degree kidnapping, to run concurrently with a sentence of twenty-four-years-to-life for unlawful sexual contact.

¶ 8 On appeal, the court of appeals reviewed for clear error the trial court's determination that Wilson failed to prove racial discrimination in the prosecutor's peremptory strike of Mr. E. Wilson, ¶ 5. The court of appeals noted that the record refuted both of the prosecutor's stated reasons for the strike, observing that Mr. E. had stated during voir dire that he was confident in DNA evidence and willing to return a guilty verdict in the absence of eyewitness identification. Id. at ¶¶ 16–17. According to the court, this inconsistency “necessarily establishe[d] that those explanations were pretextual and were actually based on Mr. E.'s race.”¹ Id. at ¶ 18. The court held that the strike violated the Equal Protection Clause as interpreted in Batson and then decided, as a matter of first impression in Colorado, that such an error is structural. Id. at ¶ 28. As a result, the court reversed the judgment of...