Taylor v. State
| Decision Date | 13 January 1988 |
| Docket Number | No. 57235,57235 |
| Citation | 524 So.2d 565 |
| Parties | Steve TAYLOR v. STATE of Mississippi. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
William B. Kirksey, Kirksey & Associates, Jackson, for appellant.
Edwin Lloyd Pittman, Atty. Gen. by DeWitt Allred, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.
Before HAWKINS, P.J., and ANDERSON and GRIFFIN, JJ.
This appeal from the Circuit Court of Warren County is the latest chapter in a story that began with a crime of singular atrocity. Polly deGrandpre, a 75-year-old woman, worked for a laundry and cleaning company in Vicksburg. On February 9, 1985, her employer came to the cleaners early in the morning and found her body. Only minutes before, someone had stabbed her repeatedly and cut her throat.
After investigation, Vicksburg authorities arrested Steve Taylor and charged him with capital murder. Trial was held in the Circuit Court, after which the jury found Taylor guilty of simple murder. Taylor was then sentenced to life imprisonment.
On appeal, Taylor has submitted many assignments of error. We have duly considered each of them, and we are of the opinion that all save one lack sufficient merit to warrant detailed discussion. Our misgivings concern the thorny problems created by the implementation of the new Supreme Court doctrine of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986).
Taylor, who is black, points out that during voir dire, all but one of the state's peremptory challenges were directed against black members of the venire. The result was that eleven of the twelve panel members and two of the three alternates were white. At trial, the judge called upon the prosecutor to state for the record his reasons for challenging each of the prospective black jurors. After this was done, the judge announced himself satisfied that the challenges had not been made for racial reasons, and the trial proceeded.
At the outset, we must make it clear that when this case was tried, Batson had not yet been decided. At the time, few people foresaw the Supreme Court's abrupt change in doctrine. Certainly, this trial judge cannot be faulted merely for lacking such precognition. On the contrary, his determination to keep the trial free from racial prejudice was obvious. Indeed, under the then-received doctrine of Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202, 85 S.Ct. 824, 13 L.Ed.2d 759 (1965), his actions would have been more than sufficient.
Unhappily, we are constrained to use a certain amount of hindsight by Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314, 107 S.Ct. 708, 93 L.Ed.2d 649 (1987), which held that Batson must be applied retroactively to cases not yet final when Batson was handed down. The present case falls within this category.
Under Batson, a criminal defendant makes out a prima facie case for attacking the composition of a jury panel if he can show (1) that he is a member of a cognizable racial group (2) that the prosecutor has exercised peremptory challenges toward the elimination of veniremen in that group; and (3) that the attendant circumstances justify an inference that the challenges were made for racially...
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Johnson v. State
...This Court has since found significant the lack of any rebuttal by the defendant of the prosecutor's asserted reasons. Taylor v. State, 524 So.2d 565 (Miss.1988). Because Johnson has offered no rebuttal, all that this Court has before it is the reasons asserted by the prosecutor. This Court......
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Davis v. State, 92-DP-00542-SCT
...State, 517 So.2d 1346, 1349 (Miss.1987), cert. denied, 487 U.S. 1210, 108 S.Ct. 2858, 101 L.Ed.2d 895 (1988); see also Taylor v. State, 524 So.2d 565, 566 (Miss.1988). The United States Supreme Court held in Powers that a white defendant had standing to challenge the prosecution's use of it......
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Davis v. State, DP-86
...exclude the veniremen from the petit jury on account of their race. Batson, 476 U.S. at 96, 106 S.Ct. at 1723; see also Taylor v. State, 524 So.2d 565, 566 (Miss.1988). Once this prima facie showing has been the burden shifts to the State to come forward with a neutral explanation for chall......
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Kolberg v. State
...1351 (Miss.1988)). The defendant may then rebut the reasons offered by the prosecution. Bush, 585 So.2d at 1268(citing Taylor v. State, 524 So.2d 565 (Miss.1988)). ¶27 The State argues that Kolberg cannot meet the three-prong test of Batson as adopted by this Court in Govan v. State, 591 So......