Reverse Batson
In State v. Edwards, the South Carolina Supreme Court reversed the defendants' murder convictions because the trial judge improperly granted the state's reverse Batson motion.
The basic principle of Batson v. Kentucky is that jurors cannot be struck on the basis of race or gender. In criminal trials, some prosecutors will strike every black person who is called if they are allowed to, because 1) the defendant is often a black person; and 2) in general black jurors are considered less friendly to the government. In not-so-far-distant less politically correct times, prosecutors in some areas of the country were openly trained to strike black persons from the jury. So - if it appears that a prosecutor is striking black jurors on the basis of race alone, the defense attorney can challenge those strikes by bringing a Batson motion before the jury is sworn.
Once the jurors are challenged, the burden is on the prosecutor to give a race-neutral reason for striking the juror. Once a race-neutral reason is provided, the burden shifts to the defense to demonstrate that the race-neutral reason is in fact a pretext for striking that juror - for example, the prosecutor's given reason for striking juror 20 is that juror 20 was a schoolteacher, and the prosecutor feels that schoolteachers may have a particular bias against the state in this particular type of case, but the prosecutor seated juror 112 who was also a schoolteacher - this would be evidence that the prosecutor's reason for striking juror 20 was a pretext.
The courts have been fairly lax about what they will allow as a race-neutral reason. In one recent trial, the prosecutor stated that he struck a female black juror because she flipped her hair and looked at him funny. The judge in that trial accepted that was a race neutral reason and allowed the jury panel to stand.
Because Batson is designed to protect the jurors as much as it is to protect the litigants, the prosecution can bring a Batson motion as well. In Edwards, the prosecutor challenged two jurors that the defense struck, and the racially neutral reason given by the defense was that one was a reporter who may have had information on the case and the other was a DMV employee who may work with law enforcement from time to time. The trial judge ruled that these reasons were a pretext (note: this is a pretext, but flipping your hair is not) and quashed the jury (they started over). The trial judge did not require the prosecution to prove pretext.
Pretty much the Supreme Court's holding in this case is: Yes, the prosecutor has to follow the rules also. At least when it is this obvious - employment should always be a race-neutral reason for a strike, absent a showing by the other party of pretext.
