State v. White, No. A03-502.

• Decision Date: 06 August 2004
• Docket Number: No. A03-502.
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Tyrone James WHITE, Appellant.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

684 N.W.2d 500

STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Tyrone James WHITE, Appellant.

No. A03-502.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

August 6, 2004.

Bradford Colbert, # 166790 — (651) 290-8651, St. Paul, MN, for Appellant.

Mike A. Hatch, Minnesota Attorney General, John B. Galus, # 33327, (651) 282-5505, Assistant Attorney General, St. Paul, MN, Alan L. Mitchell, (218) 726-2323, St. Louis County Attorney, Duluth, MN, for Respondent.

Heard, considered and decided by the court en banc.

OPINION

ANDERSON, RUSSELL A., Justice.

Appellant Tyrone James White was convicted and sentenced in St. Louis County District Court for the first-degree felony murder of Milton Williams, in violation of Minn.Stat. § 609.185(a)(3) (2002), and the attempted first-degree premeditated murder of Tami Carlson, in violation of Minn.Stat. §§ 609.17, subd. 2 and 609.185(a)(1) (2002). The district court imposed a sentence of life imprisonment for the murder and a consecutive sentence of 180 months confinement for the attempted murder.

In this direct appeal, White claims that (1) the district court erred by denying his Batson objection to the state's peremptory challenge of a prospective juror; (2) Minnesota's accomplice liability statute, Minn.Stat. § 609.05 (2002), is unconstitutional; (3) the district court erred in its instruction to the jury regarding accomplice liability; and (4) the evidence was insufficient to support the convictions. We affirm.

On April 24, 2001, White, Vidale Whitson, Benjamin King and Charlesetta Jackson drove from Minneapolis to the Duluth apartment of Tami Carlson. White, who was a friend of Carlson, had called Carlson earlier in the day and confirmed that Williams, a known drug dealer, was at Carlson's apartment. According to Carlson, a month earlier White had told Carlson that he was angry with Williams because Williams had sold fake drugs to White. Before arriving in Duluth, White and Whitson discussed their intent to rob Williams whom they knew to carry a gun and large amounts of cash and drugs. White informed Whitson that he had committed robberies with Williams in the past and that Whitson might have to use a gun. White explained that he would start an argument with Williams, which would be a signal to begin the robbery. White and Whitson brought a .22 pistol with them; Whitson explained to White that a .22 pistol should not be able to be heard in a house.

Once White, Whitson, King and Jackson arrived at Carlson's apartment, White told Jackson to stay in the car, with the motor running, and White, Whitson and King were admitted by Carlson into her apartment. White, Carlson and Williams were in the kitchen when White and Williams began arguing. On signal from White, Whitson and King entered the kitchen and Whitson walked up to Williams and shot him several times in the thigh and calf with the .22 pistol brought from Minneapolis. Williams charged at Whitson and Whitson shot Williams in the top of his head, killing him. Carlson pleaded with White for her life, stating "I don't want to die, please don't kill me." According to Carlson, White did not reply to her pleading, but gave her "the coldest stare" and turned away. As Carlson was on her knees crying and praying, Whitson shot her in the face, the bullet entering her left cheek, and breaking her jaw and neck and severing arteries.

After taking money and drugs from Williams' pockets, White, Whitson and King fled the apartment. Carlson managed to call 911 and, with the help of her neighbor, summoned help. When police arrived and asked Carlson who had done this, she replied, "Tyrone White."

Carlson's neighbor, who heard the gunshots and came to Carlson's aid, saw the assailants flee and wrote down the license number of their vehicle. Police officers later stopped the vehicle and recovered from it 48.1 grams of crack cocaine and cash totaling $2,915. The .22 pistol, which had been thrown from the fleeing vehicle, was later recovered and a BCA firearms examiner matched the bullet cartridges found at Carlson's apartment with the pistol. A DNA test matched Williams' blood with blood found on King's hands and pants.

A St. Louis County grand jury returned an indictment charging White with first-degree premeditated murder and first-degree felony murder of Williams, and attempted first-degree premeditated murder of Carlson. During selection of the petit jury, White objected under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), to the state's peremptory challenge of a prospective juror who, if seated, would have been the ninth juror.¹ We refer to her as Juror S. A Native American woman married to an African American man, Juror S revealed that her husband's aunt, whom she repeatedly referred to and claimed as her "aunt," was on the trial witness list. Juror S's daughter had been prosecuted for a felony drug-related offense by the St. Louis County Attorney's office and had been sentenced for the offense by the judge presiding over White's trial. Juror S expressed concern that there were so many minority persons in the criminal justice system.

The State exercised a peremptory challenge to Juror S and White objected to the challenge under Batson v. Kentucky, claiming that there had been a "pattern" by the state of challenging all prospective jurors with any connection to African Americans. Before hearing the State's response to White's objection, the district court stated that "the proper test" was "whether or not there has been a prima facie showing made by the person raising the objection that race has somehow factored into the preemptory challenge." The State denied that it had engaged in a "pattern" of challenging prospective jurors with connections to African Americans, noting that a juror already examined and seated on the jury was also a Native American woman married to an African American man. Eventually, this juror served as the foreperson of the jury.

When the State offered to list the race-neutral reasons for its peremptory challenge to Juror S, the district court indicated that it was not going to require that, and stated that it was "going to find that prima facie showing has not been made." The court then made two observations that serve as the basis for White's assertion in this appeal that the court applied the "wrong test" when it denied White's objection. The court observed that "I ultimately determined that I didn't see a pattern, which is what the rule requires. There probably are three or four other articulable reasons that [Juror S] could be removed from the jury on a peremptory basis that have nothing to do with race, so I will deny the Batson challenge on that basis * * *."

At the end of the trial, without objection from either party, the district court instructed the jury on liability for crimes of another, using the language from the Minnesota Jury Instruction 4.01. See 10 Minn. Dist. Judges Ass'n, Minnesota Practice — Jury Instruction Guides, Criminal, CRIMJIG 4.01 (4th ed. 1999) ("Liability for Crimes of Another").² The jury found White guilty of first-degree premeditated murder, of felony murder and attempted first-degree premeditated murder. The court entered conviction for first-degree felony murder of Williams and the court entered conviction for attempted first-degree premeditated murder of Carlson and imposed consecutive sentences, described above.³ This direct appeal followed.

I.

We turn first to White's claim that the district court erred by denying his Batson objection to the state's peremptory challenge of Juror S. The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits purposeful race discrimination in the selection of a jury and neither party may exercise peremptory challenges to strike jurors because of their race. Georgia v. McCollum, 505 U.S. 42, 59, 112 S.Ct. 2348, 120 L.Ed.2d 33 (1992); Batson, 476 U.S. at 89, 106 S.Ct. 1712. To determine whether a peremptory challenge discriminates on the basis of race, the Supreme Court established a three-step process in Batson, which the Court later summarized in Purkett v. Elem 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 discrimination.

514 U.S. 765, 767, 115 S.Ct. 1769, 131 L.Ed.2d 834 (1995) (citation omitted). This three-step Batson process is included in our Rules of Criminal Procedure. See Minn. R.Crim. P. 26.02, subd. 6a(3).⁴

Under step one of the Batson process, the defendant must establish a prima facie case of racial discrimination by showing (1) that one or more members of a racial group have been peremptorily excluded from the jury; and (2) that circumstances of the case raise an inference that the exclusion was based on race. State v. Taylor, 650 N.W.2d 190, 201 (Minn.2002) (citing Batson, 476 U.S. at 96, 106 S.Ct. 1712). The use of a peremptory challenge to remove a member of a racial minority does not necessarily establish a prima facie case of discrimination. State v. Reiners, 664 N.W.2d 826, 831 (Minn.2003). Under step one of the Batson process, if the district court determines that a prima facie showing has not been made by the party objecting to the challenge, the objection is overruled and the prospective juror is dismissed. Minn. R.Crim. P. 26.02, subd. 6a(3)(a).

Federal circuit courts are not in agreement as to the standard of review of a district court's determination, under step one of Batson, that a prima facie case of discrimination has not been established. One circuit court compared step one of the Batson analysis to a review of probable cause and suggested that de novo review is appropriate. See Mahaffey v. Page, 162 F.3d 481, 484 (...