State v. Edwards
| Decision Date | 11 November 2014 |
| Docket Number | No. 19049.,19049. |
| Citation | 102 A.3d 52,314 Conn. 465 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE of Connecticut v. Michael Anthony EDWARDS. |
Glenn W. Falk, Madison, assigned counsel, for the appellant (defendant).
Kathryn W. Bare, assistant state's attorney, with whom were Michael L. Regan, state's attorney, and, on the brief, Thomas M. Delillo, senior assistant state's attorney, for the appellee (state).
PALMER, ZARELLA, EVELEIGH, McDONALD and ESPINOSA, Js.
This appeal arises from a peremptory challenge pursuant to which a venireperson, C.D., was excluded from the jury that found the defendant, Michael Anthony Edwards, guilty of the crime of assault of public safety personnel in violation of General Statutes § 53a–167c (a)(1).1 During voir dire, the senior assistant state's attorney (prosecutor) asked C.D. whether there was anything that might make it difficult for her to sit in judgment of people, and C.D. responded: “Beside[s] being human, no.” The prosecutor later asked C.D. why she had written “human” in response to an open-ended, optional question about race on her juror questionnaire, and she answered: “Because that is the race that I belong to.” The prosecutor then exercised a peremptory challenge on the basis of C.D.'s answer to the race question. The trial court allowed the peremptory challenge and excused C.D. After a trial, the jury found the defendant guilty.
The defendant appeals from the judgment of the trial court rendered in accordance with the jury's verdict,2 claiming that his and C.D.'s rights to equal protection were violated and that this court should exercise its supervisory authority to disallow peremptory challenges based on answers to the question about race in the juror questionnaire. In support of these claims, after the defendant filed his brief with this court, he submitted a magazine article pursuant to Practice Book § 67–10 for the purpose of bringing to the court's attention what he claimed was a pertinent and significant authority. The state argues that there was no equal protection violation because the prosecutor articulated a race neutral, nonpretextual explanation for his peremptory challenge. In addition, the state requests that we do not consider the magazine article that the defendant submitted because it was not available to the trial court and is not scientific literature. We agree with the state that we may not consider this article in our resolution of the defendant's constitutional claim and that we should not consider it in deciding the defendant's supervisory authority claim. We also agree with the state that the defendant's and C.D.'s constitutional rights were not violated and that we should not invoke our supervisory authority in the present case. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.
The record sets forth the following facts and procedural history. Jury selection in the present case took place July 19 through 21, 2011. Pursuant to General Statutes § 51–232(c),3 the juror questionnaire provides the option for a venireperson to identify his or her race and ethnicity in order to enforce nondiscrimination in jury selection. See Confidential Juror Questionnaire, Judicial Branch Form JD–JA–5a. Specifically, the juror questionnaire explains that
C.D. appeared for voir dire on the second day. C.D. indicated in the juror questionnaire that her race was “human.”4 The record does not reveal C.D.'s precise racial or ethnic background, but she appeared to be African–American or a person of color.5
During voir dire, the following exchange occurred:
“[C.D.]: Beside[s] being human, no.
“[The Prosecutor]: Have you—do you have any other experiences unique to you that you think might influence the work you do as a juror here?
“[C.D.]: No. I—I wouldn't think so.
“[C.D.]: No, I don't think there would be anything else.
“[C.D.]: Because that is the race that I belong to.
6
After defense counsel questioned C.D., the prosecutor exercised a peremptory challenge to strike C.D. from the jury. Defense counsel objected and requested that the prosecutor explain his reasoning because the prosecutor had posed “the same questions [to other venirepersons], and [C.D. was] the first excused by the state.” Defense counsel further stated that he “didn't see [C.D.'s] answers ... [as] significantly different [from] anyone [else's], and [C.D.] was an African–American woman.”
The prosecutor explained that he had exercised a peremptory challenge because C.D. wrote “human” as her race and the prosecutor “found that to be of concern....” Specifically, the prosecutor explained that C.D.'s answer “seemed outside the norm of what one would expect to have placed in a questionnaire box, and I just found that to be disconcerting and didn't think that someone who would fill in ... a line like that would necessarily be appropriate to serve as a juror.” The prosecutor then stated that this response was “one of the reasons ... for not selecting her.” The prosecutor also noted that there had been two7 other African–American people in the venire, one woman and one man. The African–American woman had been selected as a juror, and the African–American man was excused by the court on the basis of a conflict.
Defense counsel responded that he would “probably [have] answer [ed] [the race] question the same [way C.D. had]” because “we're all one race....” In addition, defense counsel indicated that he did not think that the race question should be in the juror questionnaire at all. Finally, defense counsel emphasized that C.D.'s answer was an “appropriate response” because, “what is race, really?”
The prosecutor replied that, “for the record ... [defense counsel] is a white male, and if he wrote ‘human’ on his questionnaire, if he were in front of me, in all likelihood, I would not select him as a juror either, so it has nothing to do necessarily with [the] race of the venire [person].” The prosecutor further explained that, “having picked a number of jurors in [his] lifetime, [he had] never seen [C.D.'s response] before....” The prosecutor emphasized that the peremptory challenge had “nothing to do necessarily with [C.D's] race ... [but had] to do with [her] response to the questionnaire, which struck me ... as odd....” Notably, the prosecutor's concerns were not expressly tied to the race question but, rather, were phrased as a concern about unusual responses in juror questionnaires generally.8
The trial court thereafter concluded: 9 The jury selection process resulted in six jurors and two alternates, all of whom were picked from a venire of twenty-three people. The record does not reveal how many racial minorities were on the jury, but it appears that there was at least one African–American woman.
At trial, the jury found the defendant guilty of one count of assault against public safety personnel, and the trial court rendered judgment in accordance with the verdict. The defendant then appealed to the Appellate Court, and we transferred the appeal to this court pursuant to General Statutes § 51–199(c) and Practice Book § 65–2. The defendant presented for appeal the following issue: “Did the peremptory challenge against an otherwise qualified minority [venireperson] solely on the basis of her racial self-identification in the juror questionnaire deprive the defendant and the [venire-person] of their right[s] to equal protection of the law, and, in the exercise of its supervisory authority over the administration of justice, should this court disallow the use of racial self-identification in jur[or] questionnaires as a ground for a peremptory challenge?” After oral argument, and after considering the case more fully, however, we conclude that the issue presented for appeal was not properly framed. Accordingly, we rephrase the issue to conform to the issue actually presented. Cf., e.g., State v. Ouellette, 295 Conn. 173, 183–84, 989 A.2d 1048 (2010). We recast the issue as follows: “Did the prosecutor's peremptory challenge to a venireperson based on her answer to an open-ended, optional question about race in a juror questionnaire deprive the defendant and the venireperson of their rights to equal protection of the law, and should this court, in the exercise of...
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