IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
No. 94-30504
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
ARTHUR S. HUEY, IV and
ANTONIO A. GARCIA
Defendants-Appellants.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Louisiana
(February 16, 1996)
Before JOLLY, DUHÉ and WIENER, Circuit Judges.
WIENER, Circuit Judge:
Defendants-Appellants Arthur S. Huey, IV and Antonio A. Garcia
appeal their convictions on charges of conspiring to distribute
marijuana, making threats or using violence in order to collect an
extension of credit, and using a firearm in relation to a crime of
violence. Concluding that the jury selection process in this case
violated Batson v. Kentucky1 and its progeny, we reverse and remand
1
476 U.S. 79, 106 S. Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986).
for a new trial.
I
FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS
The convictions underlying this appeal arise from the drug-
related activities of Defendants-Appellants Arthur S. Huey, IV, a
Caucasian, and Antonio A. Garcia, an Hispanic-American. Over a
period of a year and one-half, Huey and Garcia sold marijuana to
Marshall Howell. The instant case concerns Huey's and Garcia's
last sale to Howell. On this particular occasion, Howell paid Huey
two-thirds of the purchase price for the marijuana, but did not did
not have the remaining funds due for the drugs. Howell became fed
up with defendants' efforts to collect the balance due, so he
anonymously contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and
offered information. Subsequently, he met with an FBI agent and
explained the series of events. Howell agreed to cooperate with
the FBI and was provided a tape recording device to record
telephone conversations. Howell taped several telephone
conversations in which Huey and Garcia made demands for the money
owed them. These tapes were later used by the government as
evidence against Huey and Garcia.
The Grand Jury for the Eastern District of Louisiana returned
a three-count indictment against Huey and Garcia, to which both
pleaded not guilty and went to trial.
At the close of the voir dire of the venire, counsel for Huey
moved to exclude six potential jurors. As noted on the record by
Huey's counsel, these six jurors constituted all of the African-
2
Americans and persons with Hispanic surnames in the jury pool.
Huey's counsel explained that the government would be playing tapes
and offering transcripts that contained harsh and offensive racial
epithets. Accordingly, argued counsel for Huey, no minority juror
would be able to make an unbiased decision regarding Huey's guilt
or innocence after hearing these tapes.2
The district court refused the request to exclude the
prospective jurors who were African-American or had Hispanic
surnames, but did state that it would voir dire the individuals
with respect to whether any of them would be influenced by the
tapes' racial slurs. The district court then advised the
prospective jurors that the tapes contained racial slurs of
significant proportion involving African-Americans and Hispanic-
Americans and inquired whether such language would affect their
ability to hear the case in a fair and impartial manner. None of
the prospective jurors responded that the content of these tapes
would influence their decision-making process with respect to
determining the defendants' guilt or innocence.
Following this voir dire by the district court, jury selection
began. The defendants' ten peremptory challenges were allocated
equally, five to Huey and five to Garcia. Counsel for Huey began
the selection process by striking three African-Americans from the
jury pool. Both the government and counsel for Garcia made Batson
2
Prior to trial, Huey's counsel filed a Motion in Limine
seeking to exclude these tape recordings from evidence because
of, inter alia, the derogatory and offensive references to race,
religion, ethnicity, and gender they contain. The district court
ruled that the tapes would be played.
3
objections, asserting that these strikes were improperly made on
the basis of race.3 The district court stated that Huey's counsel
could respond to the objections if he wished, but that the court
did not find it necessary for him to do so; and the record reflects
no response from Huey's counsel.
The selection process continued, and the government and
Garcia's counsel were given opportunities to exercise some of their
peremptory challenges. When it was Huey's turn again, counsel used
his two remaining peremptory challenges to strike two more African-
Americans. Again, counsel for Garcia made a Batson objection.
After noting this objection, the district court without further
comment allowed Huey's five peremptory challengesSQall of which had
been used to strike African-AmericansSQto stand, and the trial
proceeded.
The following day, the jury returned with a verdict of guilty
on all counts as to both Huey and Garcia. Huey and Garcia now
appeal, both arguing inter alia that the jury selection process
violated Batson v. Kentucky and its progeny.
II
ANALYSIS
We review a trial court's decision on a Batson challenge under
the clearly erroneous standard.4 Garcia insists that the district
3
The government no longer challenges the peremptory
strikes.
4
United States v. Seals, 987 F.2d 1102, 1108-09 (5th
Cir.), cert. denied, __ U.S. __, 114 S. Ct. 155, 126 L.Ed.2d 116
(1993).
4
court committed reversible error by failing to protect the equal
protection rights of the five African-American prospective jurors
who were peremptorily challenged. We agree.
In Batson v. Kentucky,5 the Supreme Court held that equal
protection principles prohibit a prospective juror from being
peremptorily challenged on the basis of race. The protection of
Batson from the harms of racial discrimination in jury selection is
not extended solely to individual defendants, but also to the
excluded jurors.6 "An individual juror does not have a right to
sit on any particular petit jury, but he or she does possess the
right not to be excluded from one on account of race."7 Thus,
discrimination in the form of excluding a prospective juror because
of the juror's raceSQeven a race that is different from that of the
defendantSQconstitutes a violation of the excluded juror's equal
protection rights.8 Whether the discriminatory challenge is made
by the prosecution or a defendant makes no difference.9
Under Powers v. Ohio, a defendant has standing to raise the
prospective juror's claim of an equal protection violation by way
5
476 U.S. 79, 106 S. Ct. 1712, 90 L.E.2d 69 (1986).
6
Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 87, 106 S. Ct. 1712,
1718, 90 L.E.2d 69 (1986).
7
Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. 400, 409, 111 S. Ct. 1364, 1370,
113 L.E.2d 1017 (1991).
8
Id.
9
Georgia v. McCollom, 505 U.S. 42, 49, 112 S. Ct. 2348,
2353, 120 L.E.2d 33 (1992). A criminal defendant's exercise of
peremptory challenges constitutes state action for purposes of
the Equal Protection clause. Id. 505 U.S. at 50-55, 112 S. Ct.
at 2354-57.
5
of a Batson challenge.10 Although the instant case is atypical, in
that one defendant is challenging the peremptory strikes of a co-
defendant, the rationale articulated in Powers for holding that a
defendant has standing to raise this claim on behalf of prospective
jurors is equally cogent and applicable in this situation.
Therefore, we conclude that Garcia has standing to challenge the
juror selection process based on his co-defendant's improper racial
use of peremptory challenges.
A three-step inquiry is made to determine whether a party has
used peremptory challenges in a way that violates the Equal
Protection clause. First, the opponent of the strike must make a
prima facie showing that the proponent of the strike exercised it
on the basis of a juror's cognizable racial background.11 The
burden then shifts to the proponent of the strike to articulate a
race-neutral explanation for removing the juror in question.12
Finally, the trial court must determine whether the opponent of the
strike has proved purposeful discrimination.13
Huey's counsel used all five of his peremptory challenges to
10
Powers, 499 U.S. at 415, 111 S. Ct. at 1373.
11
United States v. Seals, 987 F.2d 1102, 1108 (5th Cir.
1993), cert. denied, __ U.S. __, 114 S. Ct. 155, 126 L.Ed.2d 116
(1993).
12
Id. at 1108-09. The Supreme Court has recently refined
this step by holding that this race-neutral explanation tendered
by the proponent need not be persuasive, or even plausible.
Purkett v. Elem, __ U.S. __, 115 S. Ct. 1769, 1771, 131 L.E.2d
834 (1995). The persuasiveness of this explanation becomes
relevant in the third step of the inquiry. Id.
13
Seals, 987 F.2d at 1109.
6
strike African-Americans from the venire. These strikes followed
on the heels of the court's rejection of Huey's counsel's request
that all of the African-Americans and persons with Hispanic
surnames be excluded for cause. This request was based not on any
particular characteristics of the individual prospective jurors but
on counsel's belief that all members of these groups were incapable
of being impartial in the face of the racially offensive content of
the tape recordings that the jury would hear. We have no doubt,
nor does the government contest, that Garcia met his first-step
burden of making a prima facie case that Huey's counsel exercised
these challenges on the basis of race.
The burden then shifted to Huey's counsel to offer a race-
neutral explanation for these strikes. Although the district court
stated that it did not find it necessary for Huey's counsel to
respond to the Batson objections, it did provide an opportunity for
Huey's counsel to make such a response. Yet no explanationSQrace-
neutral or otherwiseSQwas proffered in response to these
objections.
The government argues that it may be that Huey's attorney
simply did not believe the prospective jurors' responses to the
court's voir dire and that this is a sufficient race-neutral
explanation. The record, however, in no way supports this
argument. The only reason articulated in the record for why these
jurorsSQas a class and not individuallySQshould not serve is that
they would be biased after hearing the derogatory language and
racial slurs contained on the tapes. This reason was premised only
7
on the race of these jurors; no mention was ever made of any non-
racial characteristic of any individual juror. Thus, the
explanation in the record for these strikes is nothing more than an
assumption of partiality based on race and a form of racial
stereotyping, both of which have been repeatedly condemned by the
courts.14 The Supreme Court has firmly "rejected the view that
assumptions of partiality based on race provide a legitimate basis
for disqualifying a person as an impartial juror."15 We do so again
today.
As the district court failed to discharge its clear duty
either to elicit a race-neutral explanation for the peremptory
challenges or deny the use of those challenge, it committed
reversible error in determining implicitly that the equal
protection rights of these jurors had not been violated. Such
error requires a new trial as to both Garcia and Huey.
We are not unaware that there is some irony in reversing
Huey's conviction given that it was his counsel who made the
discriminatory strikes. We are convinced, however, that this
result is consistent with the teachings of Batson and its progeny.
In addition to harming individual defendants and prospective
jurors, racial discrimination in the selection of jurors impugns
14
E.g., Georgia v. McCollom, 505 U.S. 42, 59, 112 S. Ct.
2348, 2359, 120 L.E.2d 33 (1992) ("the exercise of a peremptory
challenge must not be based on either the race of the juror or
the racial stereotypes held by the party."); Powers v. Ohio, 499
U.S. 400, 410, 111 S. Ct. 1364, 1370, 113 L.E.2d 1017 (1991) ("We
may not except as a defense to racial discrimination the very
stereotype the law condemns.").
15
McCollom, 505 U.S. at 59, 112 S. Ct. at 2359.
8
the integrity of the judicial system and the community at large.
"Be it at the hands of the State or the defense, if a court allows
jurors to be excluded because of a group bias, it is a willing
participant in a scheme that could only undermine the very
foundation of our system of justiceSQour citizens' confidence in
it."16
The discriminatory jury selection process of this trial
offends the Constitution and calls into question the integrity of
our judicial system. We conclude that only by repudiating all
results from such a trial can public confidence in the integrity of
this system be preserved, even when it means reversing the
conviction of the very defendant who exercised the discriminatory
challenges. Although we recognize that some might fear that this
resolution could become a source of mischief in the hands of some
co-defendants, we believe that not only is this resolution mandated
by Batson and its progeny, but that such mischief can be avoided
with relative ease by the exercise of diligent oversight and sound
judgment on the part of trial judges, and through their proper
application of the well-known three-step inquiry for ensuring race-
neutral use of peremptory challenges.
III
CONCLUSION
As the district court failed to ensure the Equal Protection
rights of the prospective jurors in accordance with Batson and its
16
Id. 505 U.S. at 49-50, 112 S. Ct. at 2354 (internal
quotation marks and citation omitted).
9
progeny, we
REVERSE and REMAND for a new trial consistent with this opinion.
E. GRADY JOLLY, Circuit Judge, with whom DUHE’, Circuit Judge, join
in concurring specially:
I concur in the majority opinion and write briefly to express
my concern over what appears to me to be an indisputable abuse of
the Batson v. Kentucky17 rule by the defendant, Arthur Huey. In the
simplest of terms, Huey has gained an unwarranted advantage of the
ruling as follows: 1) he uttered racial epithets in the course of
committing a crime; 2) faced with mounting a defense before a jury
of some individuals whose race he had insulted, he sought to
preclude their service as jurors by requesting the court to remove
all African Americans and all persons with Hispanic surnames; 3)
when that request was denied, he used his peremptory strikes to
preclude their service as jurors in violation of Batson; 4)
although successfully purging the jury, he was nevertheless
convicted; 5) he then appeals, complaining essentially of his own
unconstitutional acts, and we now reverse his conviction and grant
him a new trial on grounds that he created and benefitted from.
The majority correctly observes that under the Supreme Court
17
Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d
69 (1986).
10
rationale it is "[t]he discriminatory jury selection process of
this trial" that offends the Constitution and demands reversal.
The majority is also correct that such abuses in the future must be
avoided by the diligence of trial judges. Nevertheless, "the
integrity of the jury system," a principle underlying the Batson
decision, is not well served by the result we reach today, because
the public trust will be undermined when a convicted criminal can
win a new trial based on his own abuse of the justice system.