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Michigan Supreme Court Lansing, Michigan

Opinion
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v JEROME L. KNIGHT, Defendant-Appellant. ______________________________ PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v GREGORY M. RICE, Defendant-Appellant. _______________________________ BEFORE THE ENTIRE BENCH CORRIGAN, J.

Chief Justice:

Justices:

Clifford W. Taylor

Michael F. Cavanagh Elizabeth A. Weaver Marilyn Kelly Maura D. Corrigan Robert P. Young, Jr. Stephen J. Markman

FILED JULY 21, 2005

No. 124996

No. 125101

In these consolidated appeals, we are called upon to clarify our Batson v Kentucky, 476 US 79; 106 S Ct 1712; 90 L Ed 2d 69 (1986), jurisprudence and provide guidance to our lower courts. whether the trial Specifically, this Court must decide court in these cases determined that

Batson had been violated; namely, we must discern whether

the

trial

court

concluded

that

the

prosecutor

exercised

peremptory challenges to exclude certain prospective jurors from the jury pool on the basis of race. On the basis of

our reading of the voir dire transcripts, we hold that no Batson violation existed in this case and the trial judge neither explicitly nor implicitly found that the prosecutor purposefully discriminated in the exercise of three

peremptory challenges.

Having reviewed the whole record

and the fair inferences to be drawn from it, we cannot conclude that the trial judge implicitly found that the prosecutor purposefully discriminated. Instead, the trial

judge's ambiguous statements were driven by her goal of ensuring a racially mixed jury, not concern with

determining whether the prosecutor's asserted reasons for exercising peremptory challenges were a pretext. the trial judge's only clear statement Indeed, her

reflected

finding that neither the prosecutor nor defense counsel had engaged in racially discriminatory behavior. we affirm defendants' convictions. I. Factual Background Defendant Knight and codefendant Rice were charged Accordingly,

with first-degree murder, MCL 750.316, stemming from the shooting death of defendant was also Knight's charged former with one girlfriend. count of

Codefendant

Rice

2


possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, MCL 750.227b. The prosecutor's theory was that defendant

Knight had unsuccessfully tried to hire someone to kill his former girlfriend. to the After his initial defendant efforts Knight failed, bailed

according

prosecutor,

codefendant Rice out of jail in exchange for codefendant Rice's killing the former girlfriend. Defendant Knight and

codefendant Rice were tried jointly before the same jury. During counsel the third day of to jury the that selection, prosecutor's the defense use of was

initially

objected

peremptory attempting

challenges, to exclude

claiming

prosecutor

African-American

veniremembers.

Defense counsel expressed particular dissatisfaction with the prosecutor's reason for dismissing veniremember nine, which was that a member of veniremember nine's family had been convicted of rape. his misunderstanding of Defense counsel then demonstrated Batson by responding, "I don't

believe that whether or not there is assaultive [sic] and battery involved in that particular person's family is a basis on which to exclude someone when you already have a pattern. jury I have noticed this pattern since day one of the That's why seventy-five percent of the

trial.

exclusions have been black."

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The prosecutor immediately interjected that she had excluded Caucasian for three African-American and veniremembers and four

veniremembers the

offered

race-neutral

reasons The

excluding

African-American

veniremembers.

trial judge stated, "There have been four whites excluded, exempted by the prosecution and three blacks. based on that I don't see a Batson problem." So just Defense

counsel then commented on the racial composition of the jury pool, stating, "If you have seventy-five percent white prospective jurors, Your Honor, and twenty-five percent

black prospective jurors, now the schedule has turned and that's exactly what we've had in three days of jury

selection."

Defense counsel appeared to argue here not for

the racially neutral exercise of peremptory challenges, but for the exercise of challenges in proportion to the overall racial division of the array. no Batson violation, stating: But that's not the prosecution or the defense's fault that we are getting largely white jurors. If that's an issue, that's another issue, and that can be dealt with another way. But in this particular case and this particular matter, I do not see a pattern of the prosecution improperly excluding African American males, because they've only excluded one, or African American females where two have been excluded. I think the reasons are acceptable. don't see a problem there. 4
So I The trial judge then found

There's still right now, I don't know if this is going to end up being our jurors, but there are quite a few

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