State v. Reiners, C7-01-1001.

• Decision Date: 10 July 2003
• Docket Number: No. C7-01-1001.,C7-01-1001.
• Citation: 664 N.W.2d 826
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota, Petitioner, Appellant, v. Cecil John REINERS, Respondent.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

664 N.W.2d 826

STATE of Minnesota, Petitioner, Appellant, v. Cecil John REINERS, Respondent.

No. C7-01-1001.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

July 10, 2003.

Mike Hatch, Minnesota Attorney General, St. Paul, MN, and Amy Klobuchar, Hennepin County Attorney, Jean E. Burdorf, Assistant County Attorney, Minneapolis, MN, for State of Minnesota.

Robert D. Sicoli, Sarah M. Aho, Thompson, Sicoli & Aho, Ltd., Minneapolis, MN, for Cecil John Reiners.

Heard, considered, and decided by the court en banc.

OPINION

HANSON, Justice.

Following a jury trial, respondent Cecil John Reiners was found guilty of assault in the first degree for striking Jose Padilla in the head with a wooden board. The court of appeals reversed the conviction, concluding that the trial court committed reversible error by denying Reiners' peremptory challenge of an African-American prospective juror and, as a result of that error, Reiners was entitled to a new trial. We affirm the decision of the court of appeals.

Reiners owns Bloomington Steel and Supply, a company that fabricates support structures used in the construction of buildings. Reiners subleased a portion of the Bloomington Steel work area to another company, Keystar. Before this incident, Reiners had discouraged his employees from speaking Spanish in the work area because he believed that specific instructions pertaining to the operation of machinery were not adequately translated from English to Spanish.

On October 18, 2000, Reiners noticed one of his employees, Jose Diaz, in the work area conversing in Spanish with a Keystar employee, Jose Padilla. Reiners told the two workers "We don't speak Spanish here" and ordered Diaz to return to his assigned work area. Reiners also told Padilla not to interact with the Bloomington Steel employees. Reiners left to eat lunch and returned to the work area around 12:30 P.M. He again encountered Diaz and Padilla sitting at a table with another Bloomington Steel employee. Reiners approached the table and told Padilla to leave the premises. According to Reiners, Padilla refused to leave and threw a piece of wood at Reiners, hitting him in the forehead. According to Diaz, after Padilla refused to leave, Reiners grabbed a wooden board and made a threatening gesture as if he planned to strike Padilla with it. Diaz also testified that Padilla raised his arms in a defensive position and stated: "Go ahead." Reiners struck Padilla with the board in the side of his head. Reiners then fled the scene and was eventually arrested by the police in western Minnesota two days later. As a result of the blow, Padilla sustained skull fractures and hematomas on both the left and right sides of his head. He spent one month in the hospital and, at the time of the trial, was undergoing therapy for memory loss. The state charged Reiners with assault in the first degree, a violation of Minn.Stat. § 609.221, subd. 1 (2002).

Reiners' case went to trial on March 26, 2001. The court did not use the jury-selection process suggested by Minn. R.Crim. P. 26.02, subd. 4(3)(a), whereby prospective jurors equal to the total number necessary for trial plus the number of peremptory challenges are drawn and peremptory challenges are exercised alternatively after both parties have examined all prospective jurors. Instead, the court used the process preferred for first-degree murder cases, under Minn. R.Crim. P. 26.02, subd. 4(3)(c), whereby one prospective juror is drawn at a time and peremptory challenges are made at the completion of the examination of each juror.

The second prospective juror examined by counsel was an African-American woman. Reiners' counsel questioned her first. She stated that her father had worked as a police officer in Atlanta, Georgia for approximately nine years and that she saw him "about once every two years." She also stated that she had participated in police training at a police academy while she was in high school. Although she "loved" her exposure to police course work, she said that she did not pursue a law enforcement career because her family was concerned for her safety.

At the completion of the examination, Reiners' counsel exercised a peremptory challenge against this prospective juror. The state objected to the challenge based on Georgia v. McCollum, 505 U.S. 42, 112 S.Ct. 2348, 120 L.Ed.2d 33 (1992), and Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986). The district court excused the jury panel from the courtroom and asked Reiners' counsel to explain the reasons for his challenge. Counsel explained that his reason for excluding the prospective juror was her significant exposure to law enforcement. He said he planned to question the actions of the police and that allowing the prospective juror to sit on the jury would be tantamount to impaneling a police officer. The state argued that the prospective juror's exclusion was pretextual because she was an African American, she was one of only a few minorities in the entire panel, and the victim was Hispanic. After the state's response, the court stated:

Well, I do think [Reiners' peremptory challenge is] a bit [pretextual] reasoned because you asked her—or she volunteered and gave you, in one of your open-ended questions, that she would not believe a person just because they were a police officer. I think that was a very telling answer that supports your side of the case more so than it does the State. Most of the answers, I thought, were more favorable to you than to the State. So I am going to deny the strike, keep her on.

The district court allowed Reiners' counsel to continue questioning the prospective juror after its ruling on the Batson challenge. The state then questioned her and accepted her as a juror. The jury ultimately found Reiners guilty of assault in the first degree and the trial court entered judgment of conviction. Reiners was sentenced to 91 months in prison.

Reiners appealed his conviction and argued that the district court erred by denying his peremptory challenge. The court of appeals concluded that the prospective juror's exposure to law enforcement through her father and through her brief training in high school was "a valid, race-neutral reason" for Reiners to exclude her. State v. Reiners, 644 N.W.2d 118, 124 (Minn.App.2002). It also concluded that the district court applied the wrong standard, which had the effect of improperly shifting the burden of proof on the issue of intentional discrimination from the state to Reiners. Id. at 125. The court of appeals reversed Reiners' conviction, holding that the district court committed reversible error by denying Reiners' peremptory challenge and that Reiners was automatically entitled to a new trial. Id. at 127. We granted the state's petition for review.

I.

The state argues that the court of appeals erroneously discounted the district court's factual finding of pretext and that the district court's finding was not clearly erroneous. We have recognized that the existence of racial discrimination in the exercise of a peremptory challenge is a factual determination that is to be made by the district court and should be given great deference on review. State v. Taylor, 650 N.W.2d 190, 200-01 (Minn. 2002). Accordingly, we have said that the district court's factual determination will not be reversed unless it is clearly erroneous. Id. at 201 (citing State v. James, 520 N.W.2d 399, 403-04 (Minn.1994)).

Under Batson, the state's exercise of a peremptory challenge against a potential juror on the basis of race is a denial of equal protection for two reasons. First, racial discrimination in the selection of a jury violates the defendant's "right to be tried by a jury whose members are selected pursuant to nondiscriminatory criteria" and "puts him on trial before a jury from which members of his race have been purposefully excluded." Batson, 476 U.S. at 85-86, 106 S.Ct. 1712 (citing Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303, 25 L.Ed. 664 (1879)). Second, racial discrimination in the selection of a jury violates the prospective juror's right to participate in jury service. Id. at 87, 106 S.Ct. 1712. In McCollum, the United States Supreme Court relied upon the second reason to extend its holding in Batson to peremptory challenges made by criminal defendants. McCollum, 505 U.S. at 59, 112 S.Ct. 2348. Thus, the state clearly has standing to make a Batson objection to a defendant's peremptory challenge.

In Batson, the Supreme Court established a three-step process to determine whether a peremptory challenge discriminates on the basis of race. 476 U.S. at 96-98, 106 S.Ct. 1712. The Court has summarized the Batson analysis as follows:

[O]nce the opponent of a peremptory challenge has made out a prima facie case of racial discrimination (step one), the burden of production shifts to the proponent of the strike to come forward with a race-neutral explanation (step two). If a race-neutral explanation is tendered, the trial court must then decide (step three) whether the opponent of the strike has proved purposeful racial discrimination.

Purkett v. Elem, 514 U.S. 765, 767, 115 S.Ct. 1769, 131 L.Ed.2d 834 (1995) (citing Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. 352, 358-59, 111 S.Ct. 1859, 114 L.Ed.2d 395 (1991)).

The record suggests that the district court essentially began its Batson analysis at step two. The court of appeals ruled that the issue of whether the state established a prima facie case of discrimination was therefore moot. Reiners, 644 N.W.2d at 124; see also State v. Scott, 493 N.W.2d 546, 548 (Minn.1992). Because Reiners did not seek review of that ruling, we will not consider the adequacy of the state's prima facie case for purposes of this appeal. We note, however, that the use of a peremptory challenge to remove a member of a racial minority does not necessarily establish a prima facie case of discrimination. For example, we have held that the state's use of a peremptory challenge to remove the only...