05-2007, 05-2008 & 09-1291 U.S. v. Taylor

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Criminal Procedure
Voir dire; equal protection

When a defendant raises an equal protection challenge to the prosecutor’s peremptory strikes, the court may only consider the prosecutor’s original justification for striking a juror.

“In this case, when the Batson challenge was made, the only reason offered by the prosecutor to justify striking Watson was her response to the non-shooter question. As such, on remand the court should have limited its inquiry and analysis to exploring that very question. But the remand hearing went much further. The government compared Watson to jurors Nowak, Evans, and Wills against the backdrop of seven new reasons unrelated to the jurors’ willingness to impose the death penalty on a non-shooter. And the district court factored several of these new reasons into its analysis. For instance, the court accepted the government’s explanation for striking Watson while keeping Nowak and Evans in the pool by closely examining the written responses of all three jurors to death-penalty questions on their juror questionnaires. But at the time the Batson challenge was made, the prosecutor did not say a word about striking Watson because of her answers on her juror questionnaire. Similarly, in crediting the government’s explanation for striking Watson but not Wills, the court looked beyond their responses to the non-shooter question and analyzed their attitudes toward gun control and how they might evaluate the defendants’ backgrounds when deciding whether to recommend the death penalty. But when the Batson challenge was made, the prosecutor never tried to justify striking Watson based on her views of either of these issues.”

Vacated and Remanded.

05-2007, 05-2008 & 09-1291 U.S. v. Taylor

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, Norgle, J., Sykes, J.

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