Criminal Procedure — equal protection — peremptory challenges

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Criminal

Criminal Procedure — equal protection — peremptory challenges

Where the prosecutor’s explanations for using 15 of 20 peremptory strikes against African-Americans is implausible, it was unreasonable for state courts to credit them.

“[T]he State’s proffered reasons are simply unbelievable in light of all the evidence presented in the State court proceeding, even when viewed under the highly deferential standard of review that constrains us here. Many of the justifications the prosecutor gave for striking African Americans simply do not hold up under scrutiny—the prosecutor misstated or mischaracterized the record. And this bears on the assessment of the plausibility of the other justifications given for a particular strike—reasons that might otherwise be deemed race-neutral. See, e.g., Miller-El II, 545 U.S. at 252 (noting the ‘pretextual significance’ when a prosecutor’s stated reason does not hold up); Kesser, 465 F.3d at 360 (‘A court need not find all nonracial reasons pretextual in order to find racial discrimination.’). Further, a comparative juror analysis shows that the purported reasons for striking certain African Americans were not equally applied to non- African Americans. This, too, is evidence of pretext. And each challenged strike and inference of pretext must be considered as it bears on the others. The pretextual significance has not been explained away.”

Vacated and Remanded.

10-1434 Harris v. Hardy

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Hart, J., Tinder, J.