State v. Weaver

• Decision Date: 19 December 1995
• Docket Number: No. 71051,71051
• Citation: 912 S.W.2d 499
• Parties: STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. William WEAVER, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 499

912 S.W.2d 499

STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. William WEAVER, Appellant.

No. 71051.

Supreme Court of Missouri En Banc.

Dec. 19, 1995.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 23, 1996.

William J. Swift, Office of the State Public Defender, Columbia, for appellant.

Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon, Attorney General, Cheryl A. Caponegro, Assistant Attorney General, Jefferson City, for respondent.

HOLSTEIN, Chief Justice.

William Weaver was convicted of the first degree murder of Charles Taylor and sentenced to death. ¹ A post-conviction motion was filed pursuant to Rule 29.15. Relief was denied after an evidentiary hearing. Appeals from both judgments were consolidated. This Court has jurisdiction. Mo. Const. art. V, § 3. The conviction, sentence and denial of relief pursuant to Rule 29.15 are affirmed.

Prior to July 1987, Charles Taylor and members of Daryl Shurn's family had been involved in the ownership and operation of drug houses. A federal drug prosecution had been commenced against Daryl Shurn's brothers, Charles and Larry Shurn, in which Taylor was to be a key witness. Taylor had worked for the Shurns and held some of the Shurns' drug houses in his name.

On the morning of July 6, 1987, William Weaver and Daryl Shurn arrived at Taylor's home in the Mansion Hills apartment complex. Their plan was to force Taylor to sign over the Shurns' drug properties which Taylor was retaining in his name against the Shurns' will. After Taylor had signed the paperwork, Weaver was supposed to kill Taylor. The plan was not completely successful.

After Weaver and Shurn entered Taylor's apartment, Taylor unexpectedly pulled a gun and escaped. Weaver and Shurn gave chase and fired several shots at Taylor. Numerous residents saw Weaver and Shurn running after Taylor, shooting at him. Weaver and Shurn followed Taylor to a wooded area where Taylor fell from his wounds. Weaver and Shurn went back to the automobile. Then Weaver returned to the wooded area where Taylor had fallen and shot Taylor again. Taylor died from several gunshot wounds to the head.

Weaver and Shurn drove away from the murder scene at a high rate of speed. Witnesses at the scene immediately reported the incident to police, giving a detailed description of the vehicle. Shortly thereafter, police spotted the Shurn vehicle and gave chase. Following a collision during rush hour traffic on Interstate 70, Weaver and Shurn fled on foot. Shurn was captured at the scene, but Weaver ran off toward the Hillcrest apartment complex adjacent to the highway. Not far away, another police officer located Weaver running shoeless on a concrete street, sweating profusely. On approach by the officer, Weaver claimed he was jogging, although he was many miles from his home. He claimed to be lost. Weaver was placed under arrest and returned to the scene of the accident where one of the original pursuing police officers positively identified Weaver as the man who ran away from the Shurn car after the crash.

While awaiting trial, Weaver was incarcerated with a man by the name of Robert Dutch Tabler. Tabler testified that Weaver told him he was a hit man on the streets, that defendant and Shurn had killed Charles Taylor, and that defendant's testimony at trial would be that he was merely out jogging when the police stopped him. Weaver's primary defense at trial was misidentification by police.

On this evidence the jury convicted Weaver of first degree murder in the shooting death of Charles Taylor. He was sentenced to death. A post-conviction relief motion was filed and denied.

I.

In his first point, defendant claims the prosecutor exercised two peremptory strikes against venirepersons B and N, in violation of the prohibition in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 89, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 1719, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986). At the Batson hearing, Weaver objected to the state's two strikes because the "striking of the two blacks evidenced a policy and practice of the prosecuting attorney's office to virtually eliminate blacks from the jury." The prosecutor's response was as follows:

[T]here's not a pattern of discrimination or systematic exclusion. There are three blacks on the jury, which is 25% of the jury, which I think is significantly higher than the black population in St. Louis County.

The two blacks I struck with my peremptory strikes were not because the people were black but for other reasons. Let's see. Juror number 27, Ms. [B], I struck for a number of reasons: One, in the death penalty phase, although she said she could impose the death penalty, I wasn't persuaded that she could. I thought she said it with some reluctance and some hesitation. I also couldn't maintain any eye contact with her. I know bad vibrations and bad chemistry between a lawyer and a prospective juror doesn't carry great weight with the Court or, at least, the Court of Appeals, but I think it's a legitimate reason for the attorney to strike someone.

In any event, I was not persuaded that she could give the death penalty, particularly to a fellow black person. I didn't think she was strong enough. I observed her a lot of times cutting up and talking to the black gentleman next to her, Mr. [I], who I have left on the jury by way of my strikes and I simply felt that she would not be a fair and impartial juror.

With regard to juror number 54, Ms. [N], I felt that she was a weak person, both during the voir dire on the death penalty and on the voir dire on the death penalty, and on the voir dire--just the general voir dire, although Ms. Black conducted most of it. My impression of her was that she was not particularly bright and I struck a couple of white people for that very same reason. I thought in a case like this I needed intelligent people. I didn't figure she qualified in that regard and I thought she took the whole matter rather frivolously.

....

Perhaps I misstated my case somewhat with Ms. [N] when I say intellectually weak. What I really meant is her personality struck me--granted, she did try hard to get on the jury, which showed a civic minded interest; but in those interviews with the Court, she just struck me as a person that was a weak personality where the death penalty is involved, and I didn't think she would be able to vote for the death penalty.

The trial court found the prosecutor's explanations to be race-neutral.

It is error to use a peremptory strike to challenge jurors solely on the basis of race or on the assumption that members of a particular racial group are unable to impartially consider the state's case against a member of the juror's racial group. Batson, 476 U.S. at 89, 106 S.Ct. at 1719. Where a prosecutor gives a reasonably specific, race-neutral reason for making peremptory strikes, the prosecutor's explanation will suffice unless there is an inherently discriminatory intent in that explanation. Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. 352, 358-59, 111 S.Ct. 1859, 1865-66, 114 L.Ed.2d 395 (1991). A legitimate reason is not one that makes sense but one that does not deny equal protection. Purkett v. Elem, --- U.S. ----, ----, 115 S.Ct. 1769, 1771, 131 L.Ed.2d 834 (1995). A reviewing court will set aside the trial court's finding as to whether the prosecutor discriminated in the exercise of peremptory challenges only if such finding is clearly erroneous. State v. Blankenship, 830 S.W.2d 1, 15 (Mo. banc 1992).

The trial judge is obligated to apply a three-pronged analysis in assessing the explanations provided by the prosecutor. State v. Antwine, 743 S.W.2d 51, 64-65 (Mo. banc 1987), cert. denied 486 U.S. 1017, 108 S.Ct. 1755, 100 L.Ed.2d 217 (1988). Trial judges must evaluate the susceptibility of the particular case to racial discrimination, the prosecutor's demeanor and, finally, the judge must evaluate the explanation itself. Id. at 65. Crucial to the analysis is whether similarly situated white venirepersons escaped the state's challenge. Id.

A.

Weaver asserts that striking B because she could not give the death penalty to a fellow black violates Batson and is racially discriminatory on its face. The prosecutor's stated reasons for striking B were based upon her words and his observations of her conduct in the prosecutor's presence during voir dire in which the prosecutor perceived bias by juror B indicating her inability or unwillingness to impose the death penalty. What a prosecutor observes about a potential juror in voir dire, as well as what is said, may form a legitimate nondiscriminatory basis for exercising a peremptory strike. See Purkett, --- U.S. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1771. Those observations here included reluctance and hesitation in answering questions, lack of eye contact with the prosecutor, lack of strength, and "cutting up" and talking during voir dire. The prosecutor's explanation here was specific, race-neutral, and free of any racially discriminatory purpose. The trial court had the opportunity to observe the juror in question, listen to the manner in which she answered the questions, and to assess the prosecutor's demeanor and reasons for striking the juror.

Weaver cites a series of cases in which a prosecutor's racial stereotyping or assumptions made by the prosecutor about members of a minority group were held to be inadequate reasons for using a peremptory strike to dismiss a juror. See Rush v. Smith, 56 F.3d 918 (8th cir. en banc 1995); Moore v. State, 811 S.W.2d 197, 200 (Tex.App.1991); Somerville v. State, 792 S.W.2d 265, 268-69 (Tex.App.1990); State v. Tomlin, 299 S.C. 294, 384 S.E.2d 707, 710 (1989); and State v. Holman, 759 S.W.2d 902 (Mo.App.1988). The distinction between this case and all of those relied on by the defendant is that in this case, the prosecutor's decision to strike B was not based solely on race or upon any assumptions about persons of B's race but was based upon the way she behaved and answered questions, that is, hesitation, lack of eye contact, flippancy and other intangibles observed only by those present in the courtroom....