State v. Sparks
| Citation | 355 S.E.2d 658,257 Ga. 97 |
| Decision Date | 19 May 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. 44010,44010 |
| Parties | The STATE v. SPARKS. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Georgia |
Johnnie L. Caldwell, Jr., Dist. Atty., J. David Fowler, Asst. Dist. Atty., Thomaston, for the State.
Bentley C. Adams III, Thomaston, for James Albert Sparks.
We granted certiorari in Sparks v. State, 180 Ga.App. 467, 349 S.E.2d 504 (1986) to determine the applicability of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986) to this case. In Batson, the United States Supreme Court held that a state criminal defendant could establish a prima facie case of racial discrimination violative of the Fourteenth Amendment based on the prosecutor's use of peremptory challenges to strike members of the defendant's race from the jury and that, once the defendant had made the prima facie showing, the burden shifted to the prosecution to come forward with a neutral explanation for these challenges.
The ruling in Batson applies to this case which was on direct appeal to the Georgia Court of Appeals at the time Batson was decided. Griffith v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. ----, 107 S.Ct. 708, 93 L.Ed.2d 649 (1987). The issue presented here is whether the defendant's Batson claim was timely made. The record reflects that following voir dire, the jury was selected, sworn, given preliminary instructions by the trial court, and excused for lunch. Following the recess and a lengthy hearing on an unrelated defense motion, counsel for defendant moved for a mistrial, claiming that Spark's constitutional rights had been violated by the prosecutor's use of peremptory challenges to exclude blacks from the jury panel, which motion was also denied. The Court of Appeals held that defendant's Batson claim was timely because it was raised at the first opportunity, and remanded the case to the trial court for further proceedings pursuant to the principles enunciated in Batson. While it does not appear that the defendant in this case was prevented from raising his Batson claim prior to the time the jury was sworn, because there have been no judicial guidelines regarding the time and manner in which such a claim is to be presented, and because the defendant's motion in this regard was made relatively promptly in the course of the proceedings, we affirm the holding of the Court of Appeals. However, we hold that hereafter any claim under Batson should be raised prior to the time the jurors selected to try the case are sworn. In this manner, the trial...
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Banks v. Horn
...remand, the Supreme Court of Georgia held that the claim was procedurally barred based on its intervening decision in State v. Sparks, 257 Ga. 97, 355 S.E.2d 658 (1987), that a Batson claim had to be raised prior to the time the jurors selected for trial were sworn. Ford at 417-418, 111 S.C......
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State v. Robinson
...856 (1991); Tursio v. United States, 634 A.2d 1205, 1209-10 (D.C.1993); State v. Castillo, 486 So.2d 565 (Fla.1986); State v. Sparks, 257 Ga. 97, 98, 355 S.E.2d 658 (1987); People v. Evans, 125 Ill.2d 50, 61-62, 125 Ill.Dec. 790, 530 N.E.2d 1360 (1988), cert. denied, 490 U.S. 1113, 109 S.Ct......
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Bright v. State
...Bright's present Batson claim is not timely made. See Brantley v. State, 262 Ga. 786, 789(4), 427 S.E.2d 758 (1993); State v. Sparks, 257 Ga. 97, 355 S.E.2d 658 (1987). 11. Contrary to Bright's assertion in his fifteenth enumeration of error, we cannot conclude that the alleged leading and ......
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Spencer v. State
...S.E.2d 48 (1987), we held: "A Batson issue must be raised in a timely manner, and after trial is too late." See also State v. Sparks, 257 Ga. 97, 355 S.E.2d 658 (1987). Because Spencer did not raise this issue in a timely manner, the trial court did not decide whether the defendant had made......