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Supreme Court of Louisiana
FOR IMMEDIATE NEWS RELEASE FROM: CLERK OF SUPREME COURT OF LOUISIANA The Opinions handed down on the 19th day of March, 2013, are as follows: NEWS RELEASE #016

BY WEIMER, J.: 2012-K -2042 STATE OF LOUISIANA v. JEREMY PATTERSON (Parish of Orleans)(Second Degree Murder) Judge Jefferson D. Hughes III, was assigned as Justice pro tempore, sitting for Kimball, C.J., for oral argument. He now sits as an elected Justice at the time this opinion is rendered. For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the court of appeal is affirmed. AFFIRMED.

03/19/13

SUPREME COURT OF LOUISIANA
NO. 2012-K-2042 STATE OF LOUISIANA VERSUS JEREMY PATTERSON
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF APPEAL, FOURTH CIRCUIT PARISH OF ORLEANS

WEIMER, Justice1 We granted certiorari in this case to consider whether, following a district court ruling prohibiting the defendant from exercising a peremptory challenge to back strike a provisionally selected juror in violation of La. C.Cr.P. art. 799.1, the court of appeal appropriately applied a harmless error analysis to conclude that the error in denying the back strike was not harmless. Finding the court of appeal correctly applied a harmless error analysis to the facts of this case, we affirm the decision below. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND On November 6, 2008, defendant, Jeremy Patterson, and a co-defendant, Tyrone Reynolds, were charged by grand jury indictment with one count of second

1

Judge Jefferson D. Hughes III, was assigned as Justice pro tempore, sitting for Kimball, C.J., for oral argument. He sits as an elected Justice at the time this opinion is rendered.

degree murder, in violation of La. R.S. 14:30.1. The charge stems from the July 20, 2008 shooting death of Kerry A. Emery. At his November 17, 2009 arraignment, defendant entered a plea of not guilty to the charge of second degree murder.2 A jury trial commenced on June 15, 2010. During voir dire, at the close of examination of the first panel of prospective jurors, defense counsel indicated to the district court that he wished to exercise a peremptory challenge against juror number sixteen, Suzanne K. Dumez. He quickly changed his mind, informing the court that he did not wish to excuse Ms. Dumez "at this point ... [but] may excuse her later." The court instructed counsel that he would not be allowed to back strike and that he would be required to excuse the prospective juror at that point, or not at all. Ms. Dumez was accepted as a juror over counsel's timely objection to the court's no back-strike ruling. At the conclusion of the voir dire of the second panel, a similar discussion ensued between the court and defense counsel when counsel moved to strike juror number five from the first panel, Ryan McCall. Counsel explained that he had intended to peremptorily challenge Mr. McCall at the end of the first panel, but was having trouble with his seating chart and had gotten the names of the prospective jurors mixed up. The district court denied the request to back strike Mr. McCall, and counsel noted his objection. Later, during the course of trial, defense counsel reiterated his objection to the no back-strike ruling, moving for a mistrial based on the district court's refusal to allow him to back strike juror McCall before the entire jury panel was sworn and when he had peremptory challenges remaining. The district court denied the motion.

2

Reynolds also entered a plea of not guilty at his arraignment and, following a jury trial on October 1, 2009, was acquitted of the charge of second degree murder. 2

Following the conclusion of testimony, the jury returned a verdict of guilty, which the district court concluded was not legal because "[i]n order to have a verdict, ten out of twelve people must vote for a single verdict," and "there is not ten out of twelve." The jury retired for further deliberations and returned with a verdict of guilty as charged. The vote to convict was ten to two. The defendant filed a motion for new trial, raising, among other issues, the denial of his request to peremptorily challenge provisionally selected jurors via back strike. The new trial motion was denied, and on August 25, 2010, defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment at hard labor without benefit of probation, parole, or suspension of sentence. Defendant appealed. In an unpublished decision, the court of appeal reversed defendant's conviction, vacated his sentence, and remanded the matter to the district court for a new trial. State v. Patterson, 2011-0648 (La.App. 4 Cir. 8/24/12), 98 So.3d 439 (Table). In doing so, the court of appeal addressed the merits of only one of six assigned errors

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