132 Nev., Advance Opinion 2.0
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEVADA
JASON DUVAL MCCARTY, No. 58101
Appellant,
vs.
THE STATE OF NEVADA,
FILED
Respondent. MAR 3 1 2016
Appeal from a judgment of conviction, pursuant to a jury
verdict, of two counts of first-degree murder with the use of a deadly
weapon, one count of conspiracy to commit murder, two counts of
conspiracy to commit kidnapping, three counts of first-degree kidnapping,
two counts of robbery with the use of a deadly weapon, and one count each
of conspiracy to commit burglary, burglary, battery with substantial bodily
harm, robbery, and pandering. Appellant was sentenced to death for each
murder. Eighth Judicial District Court, Clark County; Michael Villani,
Judge.
Reversed and remanded.
Christopher R. Oram, Las Vegas,
for Appellant.
Adam Paul Laxalt, Attorney General, Carson City; Steven B. Wolfson,
District Attorney, and Marc P. DiGiacomo and Ryan J. MacDonald,
Deputy District Attorneys, Clark County,
for Respondent.
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BEFORE THE COURT EN BANC.
OPINION
By the Court, CHERRY, J.:
Jason Duval McCarty was convicted of multiple felony counts
related to the kidnapping and murder of Charlotte Combado and Victoria
McGee. In two interviews with police after his initial appearance before a
magistrate, McCarty denied killing the women or being present when they
were killed, instead implicating Domonic Malone, but he admitted to
helping to discard evidence. The district court denied a motion to
suppress the statements made in those interviews, and McCarty
challenges that decision on appeal. We conclude that McCarty's Sixth
Amendment right to counsel attached at his initial appearance before a
magistrate but that he waived his right to have counsel present at the
subsequent interviews when he was informed of his rights consistent with
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), and chose to speak with police
without counsel Although McCarty is not entitled to relief on that issue,
an error during jury selection requires that we reverse the judgment of
conviction and remand for a new trial. In particular, after considering all
the relevant circumstances, we conclude that the district court committed
clear error when it rejected McCarty's objection under Batson v. Kentucky,
476 U.S. 79 (1986), to the State's use of a peremptory challenge to remove
an African American from the venire.
I.
McCarty was arrested on the evening of May 25, 2006. The
supporting Declaration of Arrest identifies numerous charges, including
two counts of murder with the use of a deadly weapon, three counts of
kidnapping, three counts of conspiracy, and battery causing substantial
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bodily harm According to the Henderson Township Justice Court's
minutes, McCarty first appeared before a magistrate on May 30, 2006, five
days after he was arrested. At that time, McCarty was denied bail on the
murder charges and bail was set at $2 million on "all other charges."
Eight days later, counsel was appointed to represent him when he
appeared for arraignment. During the eight days between his initial
appearance and his arraignment, McCarty was interrogated by the State
on two occasions. He contends that the statements he made during the
interrogations should have been suppressed because detectives
deliberately elicited incriminating statements after his Sixth Amendment
right to counsel attached. The State contends that McCarty's Sixth
Amendment right to counsel did not attach until the district attorney filed
"formal" charges on June 7, 2006, the same date that McCarty appeared
for arraignment and was appointed counsel Both McCarty and the State
are mistaken.
A.
We first address the State's misconception about when the
Sixth Amendment right to counsel attaches. The Sixth Amendment
provides that, "WTI all prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right .. . to
have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence." U.S. Const. amend. VI.
As the Supreme Court has explained, the Sixth Amendment right to
counsel "is limited by its terms," and therefore, wit does not attach until a
prosecution is commenced." Rothgery v. Gillespie Cty., 554 U.S. 191, 198
(2008) (quoting McNeil v. Wisonsin, 501 U.S. 171, 175 (1991)); see also
Dewey v. State, 123 Nev. 483, 488,
169 P.3d 1149, 1152 (2007) (stating that
the "right to counsel is triggered at or after the time that judicial
proceedings have been initiated" (quotation marks omitted)).
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Commencement of prosecution, for purposes of the attachment of the right
to counsel, has been tied to "the initiation of adversary judicial criminal
proceedings—whether by way of formal charge, preliminary hearing,
indictment, information, or arraignment." Rot hgery, 554 U.S. at 198
(quotation marks omitted). One example of the initiation of judicial
proceedings is particularly relevant in this case—an initial appearance
before a magistrate.
Beginning as early as 1977, the Supreme Court has held "that
the right to counsel attaches at the initial appearance before a judicial
officer." Id. at 199 (citing Brewer v. Williams,
430 U.S. 387, 399 (1977);
Michigan v. Jackson, 475 U.S. 625, 629 n.3 (1986), overruled on other
grounds by Montejo v. Louisiana, 556 U.S. 778, 797 (2009). An "initial
appearance" has been characterized by the Court as a hearing at which a
magistrate informs the defendant of the charge and various rights in
further proceedings and determines the conditions for pretrial release. Id.
Based on the Court's description of an initial appearance, the proceeding
in this case in justice court on May 30, 2006, was an initial appearance:
McCarty was in custody on a declaration of arrest that set forth specific
charges and probable cause to support those charges, was brought before a
magistrate who informed him of his right to counsel, his right to remain
silent, and his right to a preliminary hearing and who had already
determined the conditions for pretrial release (as part of a probable cause
review on May 27). Contrary to the State's assertion, the fact that the
district attorney had not yet filed "formal" charges is irrelevant. Id. at
194-95 (rejecting argument that attachment of the right to counsel
"requires that a public prosecutor (as distinct from a police officer) be
aware of [the] initial proceeding or involved in its conduct"); id. at 207
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("[U]nder the federal standard, an accusation filed with a judicial officer is
sufficiently formal, and the government's commitment to prosecute it
sufficiently concrete, when the accusation prompts arraignment and
restrictions on the accused's liberty to facilitate prosecution."); id. at 210
(observing that "an initial appearance following a charge signifies a
sufficient commitment to prosecute regardless of a prosecutor's
participation, indictment, information, or what the County calls a 'formal'
complaint"). McCarty's Sixth Amendment right to counsel attached on
May 30, 2006.
B.
"Whether the right has been violated and whether [McCarty]
suffered cognizable harm are separate questions from when the right
attaches." Rothgery, 554 U.S. at 212 n.17; see also
id. at 212 n.15 ("We do
not here purport to set out the scope of an individual's postattachment
right to the presence of counsel It is enough for present purposes to
highlight that the enquiry into that right is a different one from the
attachment analysis."); id. at 213-14 (Alito, J., concurring) ("As I interpret
our precedents, the term 'attachment' signifies nothing more than the
beginning of the defendant's prosecution. It does not mark the beginning
of a substantive entitlement to the assistance of counsel."). "Once
attachment occurs," the defendant "is entitled to the presence of counsel
during any 'critical stage' of the postattachment proceedings." Id. at 212.
"Thus, counsel must be appointed within a reasonable time after
attachment to allow for adequate representation at any critical stage
before trial, as well as at trial itself." Id.
After the right to counsel attached in this case, eight days
passed before counsel was appointed. During that time, McCarty was
interviewed by police on two occasions (June 1 and June 6). The Supreme
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Court has held that postattachment interrogation by the State is a critical
stage at which the defendant has a right to be represented by counsel.
Montejo, 556 U.S. at 786 (citing Massiah v. United States,
377 U.S. 201,
204-05 (1964)). It is undisputed that McCarty did not have counsel
present during the postattachment interrogations. Although it is arguable
that the eight-day delay in the appointment of counsel was unreasonable,
as the Supreme Court has "place [dl beyond doubt," the defendant may
waive the Sixth Amendment right to counsel, "so long as relinquishment of
the right is voluntary, knowing, and intelligent." Id. "The defendant may
waive the right whether or not he is already represented by counsel; the
decision to waive need not itself be counseled." Id.
Here, the district court found, after a hearing on the motion to
suppress, that McCarty "had been Mirandized." According to the Supreme
Court, "when a defendant is read his Miranda rights (which includes the
right to haveS counsel present during interrogation) and agrees to waive
those rights, that typically does the trick" because even though the
Miranda rights have their foundation in the Fifth Amendment, a Miranda
advisement is sufficient to apprise a defendant of the nature of his Sixth
Amendment rights and the consequences of abandoning those rights. Id.
at 786-87 (citing Patterson v. Illinois, 487 U.S. 285, 296 (1988)). Because
McCarty has failed to demonstrate that his Miranda waiver was not
voluntary, knowing, and intelligent, we cannot say that there was a Sixth
Amendment violation that would have required the district court to grant
the motion to suppress.
McCarty also contends that the State engaged in
discriminatory jury selection when it exercised peremptory strikes to
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remove two African-American prospective jurors from the venire. "The
harm from discriminatory jury selection extends beyond that inflicted on
the defendant and the excluded juror to touch the entire community."
Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 87 (1986). Discriminatory jury selection
is particularly concerning in capital cases where each juror has the power
to decide whether the defendant is deserving of the ultimate penalty,
death.
A.
At the beginning of McCarty's trial, the district court held five
days of voir dire, narrowing the venire to 36 prospective jurors after for-cause challenges. The State exercised ten peremptory challenges, using
two of them to strike two of the three remaining African Americans in the
venire McCarty objected to those two peremptory challenges as
discriminatory, focusing primarily on prospective juror number 36, a
married 28-year-old African-American mother of two who was a full-time
college student. In response to McCarty's objection, the State explained
that based on prospective juror 36's responses to questions during voir
dire, it conducted independent research into her background in an attempt
to learn why her brother had been incarcerated. During the course of that
investigation, the State conducted a Shared Computer Operations for
Protection and Enforcement (SCOPE) background check and learned that
she had a valid work card for an adult nightclub.' Referring to that
information, the prosecution explained to the district court that, "with all
due respect, it has nothing to do with the race, but the State of Nevada's
'The investigation failed to uncover any information about the
prospective juror's brother.
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not going to leave somebody who works at a strip club on their panel."
McCarty argued that the State used prospective juror 36's work card as
pretext for purposeful discrimination. When McCarty attempted to point
out that prospective juror 36 had obtained the work card "over three years
ago" and that she mentioned in her juror questionnaire that she had been
a full-time college student for over a year, the district court interrupted
defense counsel and told counsel, "Mt sounds like your argument here is
for the Supreme Court. I've made my decision. And I don't mean it in a
flippant way .. . [a]nd I am concerned about this, but. . . I've ordered that
they show you the SCOPE, and it'll be part of the record, and we can go
from there." The court then continued with the peremptory challenges
and swore in the jury.
McCarty contends that the district court erred by denying his
Batson objection because the State's race-neutral explanations were
pretext for racial discrimination. In its answering brief, the State fails to
mention its strip-club explanation provided to the district court and
instead focuses on prospective juror 36's brother, arguing that it struck
this prospective juror because her brother was prosecuted by the State 13
years earlier and it did not want jurors who had family members who had
been convicted of a violent crime to serve on the jury. Having considered
all the circumstances surrounding McCarty's Batson objection, we
conclude that the district court clearly erred.
B.
An equal protection challenge to the exercise of a peremptory
challenge is evaluated using the three-step analysis set forth by the
United States Supreme Court in Batson. Kaczmarek v. State, 120 Nev.
314, 332,
91 P.3d 16, 29 (2004); see also Purkett v. Elem,
514 U.S. 765, 767
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(1995) (summarizing the three-step Batson analysis). First, "the opponent
of the peremptory challenge must make out a prima facie case of
discrimination." Ford v. State, 122 Nev. 398, 403,
132 P.3d 574, 577
(2006). Then, "the production burden .. . shifts to the proponent of the
challenge to assert a neutral explanation for the challenge," id., that is
"clear and reasonably specific," Purkett, 514 U.S. at 768 (internal
quotation marks omitted). Finally, "the trial court must ... decide
whether the opponent of the challenge has proved purposeful
discrimination." Ford, 122 Nev. at 403,
132 P.3d at 577. "This final step
involves evaluating the persuasiveness of the justification proffered by the
prosecutor, but the ultimate burden of persuasion regarding racial
motivation rests with, and never shifts from, the opponent of the strike."
Rice v. Collins, 546 U.S. 333, 338 (2006) (internal quotation marks
omitted). We review the district court's ruling on the issue of
discriminatory intent for clear error. See Libby v. State, 115 Nev. 45, 55,
975 P.2d 833, 839 (1999). In this case, we only address the third step of
the Batson inquiry because the district court's decision at step one is moot,
see Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. 352, 359 (1991), and McCarty does
not argue that the State's explanations for striking the prospective jurors
were facially discriminatory, see Purkett, 514 U.S. at 768 (explaining that
luhiless a discriminatory intent is inherent in the prosecutor's
explanation, the reason offered will be deemed race neutral" at step two
(internal quotation marks omitted)).
As we recently discussed in our opinion in Hawkins v. State,
the defendant bears a heavy burden in demonstrating that the State's
facially race-neutral explanation is pretext for discrimination. 127 Nev.
575, 578-79,
256 P.3d 965,967 (2011). In order to carry that burden, the
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defendant must offer some analysis of the relevant considerations which is
sufficient to demonstrate that it is more likely than not that the State
engaged in purposeful discrimination. Considerations that are relevant at
the third step include, but are not limited to: (1) the similarity of answers
to voir dire questions given by jurors who were struck by the prosecutor
and answers by those jurors of another race or ethnicity who remained in
the venire, (2) the disparate questioning by the prosecutors of struck
jurors and those jurors of another race or ethnicity who remained in the
venire, (3) the prosecutors' use of the "jury shuffle," and (4) "evidence of
historical discrimination against minorities in jury selection by the district
attorney's office." Id. at 578,
256 P.3d at 967. "An implausible or fantastic
justification by the State may, and probably will, be found to be pretext for
intentional discrimination." Ford, 122 Nev. at 404,
132 P.3d at 578.
The district court also plays an important role during step
three of the Batson inquiry and must "undertake a sensitive inquiry into
such circumstantial and direct evidence of intent as may be available" and
"consider all relevant circumstances" before ruling on a Batson objection.
Batson, 476 U.S. at 93, 96 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also
Snyder v. Louisiana, 552 U.S. 472, 478 (2008). "A district court may not
unreasonably limit the defendant's opportunity to prove that the
prosecutor's reasons for striking minority veniremembers were
pretextual." Conner v. State, 130 Nev., Adv, Op. 49, 327 P.3d 503, 509
(2014). The district court should sustain the Batson objection and deny
the peremptory challenge if it is "more likely than not that the challenge
was improperly motivated." Johnson v. California, 545 U.S. 162, 170
(2005); see also Williams v. Beard, 637 F.3d 195, 215 (3d Cir. 2011).
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C.
We turn then to the inquiry that was conducted at step three
in this case. Although McCarty challenges the district court's decision at
step three with respect to both of the African-American prospective jurors
who were struck by the State, we need only consider one of them here. See
Snyder, 552 U.S. at 478 (explaining that clear error with respect to one
juror is sufficient for reversal); United States v. Vasquez-Lopez, 22 F.3d
900, 902 (9th Cir. 1994) ("[T]he Constitution forbids striking even a single
prospective juror for a discriminatory purpose."). In its argument below,
the State explained to the district court that it does not want employees of
strip clubs to serve as jurors. After a lunch break, and 30 minutes into
argument on McCarty's Batson objection, the State added that it was also
concerned that prospective juror 36 might be upset because the State
prosecuted her brother 13 years earlier or that her brother might have
committed a violent crime.
We first address the race-neutral explanation initially offered
by the State for striking prospective juror 36. The State claimed that it
struck prospective juror 36 because "the State of Nevada's not going to
leave somebody who works at a strip club on their panel." The State's
explanation is troubling because the State admitted that it only ran a
SCOPE background check on one of the other 35 prospective jurors
remaining in the venire. If, indeed, prospective juror 36's possession of a
valid work card for an adult nightclub made the State uneasy, it should
have also been worried about the other 34 prospective jurors on whom it
did not conduct a SCOPE background check to determine whether they
had obtained a valid work card within the last three years. This kind of
disparate treatment supports our conclusion that it is more likely than not
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that the reasons given for striking prospective juror 36 were mere pretext
for purposeful discrimination. See Miller-El v. Dretke, 545 U.S. 231, 244
(2004).
We acknowledge that this pretext argument was not well
developed in the district court and McCarty takes a different tact on
appeal. However, McCarty twice alluded to this observation below in the
context of challenging the State's use of SCOPE background checks on
jurors. He first complained that the defense cannot assess whether the
State has articulated a race-neutral reason without equal access to the
SCOPEs because the defense had no way of knowing if any of the other
potential jurors had work cards. McCarty further argued that "[ill two of
those jurors have stripper cards, then we can show the Court that's not a
racially neutral reason." Later, McCarty suggested a hypothetical where a
prosecutor accesses an African-American juror's SCOPE in search of a
race-neutral reason to strike the juror. He argued that "[ill the prosecutor
were to make a specific election to not examine any other SCOPEs, you
have then a mechanism in place where a race-neutral reason can be
proffered and the validity of the race-neutral reason can never be
challenged." These arguments point to the concern we have in this case
that the discovery of juror 36's work card was just a fortuitous excuse to
remove this African-American juror. We cannot overlook such a clear
instance of discriminatory intent. Considering the State's original reason
for conducting the independent background investigation (prospective
juror 36's brother's criminal history) and that investigation's failure to
yield results, we conclude that the State's strip-club explanation is
Kaczmarek, 120 Nev. at 334,
91 P.3d at 30 (quoting
Purkett, 514 U.S. at 768).
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1
We are also troubled by the district court's handling of
McCarty's concern about the accuracy of the work-card information on
prospective juror 36's SCOPE. Her SCOPE indicated that she had
obtained a work card to serve cocktails at an adult nightclub three years
earlier. The juror listed her occupation as "full-time student" in her
questionnaire, and she confirmed during voir dire that she was a full-time
student studying health-care administration. When McCarty attempted
to point out that it was unlikely that prospective juror 36 currently
worked at an adult nightclub because she listed her occupation as "full-time student" in her questionnaire and had obtained the work card three
years earlier, the district court prevented him from continuing with his
argument and told him "it sounds like your argument here is for the
Supreme Court." The district court is mistaken. As we recently explained
in Conner, 130 Nev., Adv. Op. 49, 327 P.3d at 509, it is the district court
that "has a duty to assess whether the opponent of the strike has met its
burden to prove purposeful discrimination" and the "district court may not
unreasonably limit the defendant's opportunity to prove that the
prosecutor's reasons for striking minority veniremembers were
pretextual."
Here, the district court admitted it was "concerned" about the
State's independent investigation into prospective juror 36's background,
but it nevertheless disregarded McCarty's attempt to show that it was
unlikely that prospective juror 36 currently worked at an adult nightclub.
The district court failed to undertake the sensitive inquiry into all the
relevant circumstances required by Batson and its progeny before
rendering its decision. See Batson, 476 U.S. at 93,96. Furthermore, the
district court failed to discuss which facts or circumstances alleviated its
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concerns about the State's independent investigation and caused it to deny
McCarty's Batson challenge. We have previously explained that "an
adequate discussion of the district court's reasoning may be critical to our
ability to assess the district court's resolution of any conflict in the
evidence regarding pretext." Kaczmarek, 120 Nev. at 334,
91 P.3d at 30.
The district court's failure to consider all of the relevant circumstances
and make a record in this case undermines our confidence in its decision.
The State asks this court to disregard its strip-club
explanation and focus on its alternative explanation that it struck
prospective juror 36 because her brother was prosecuted by the State 13
years earlier, and it did not want veniremembers who had family members
who had been convicted of a violent crime to serve as jurors. But, there is
no evidence that prospective juror 36's brother was ever convicted of a
violent crime. Furthermore, when prospective juror 36 told the State that
she had "very little" relationship with her brother and, based on the
limited information she had about his prosecution, she believed the State
treated him fairly, the prosecutor responded, "So obviously. . . you don't
harbor any resentment against my office." The State also fails to mention
that it did not offer its alternative explanation until after McCarty
attacked its first race-neutral explanation as pretextual. Cf. Miller-El,
545 U.S. at 246 (finding it difficult to credit the State's alternative race-neutral explanation because of its pretextual timing).
Nonetheless, we have considered the State's alternative
explanation Like prospective juror 36, three other prospective jurors who
were not struck by the State responded affirmatively to the
questionnaire's inquiry whether "anyone close to you [has] ever been
charged with, arrested for, or convicted of any public offense." We focus on
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prospective juror 76, a Caucasian, and the only other prospective juror on
whom the State conducted a SCOPE background check. In response to
this question, prospective juror 36 answered, "Brother, not exactly sure of
the charges." Similarly, the Caucasian juror answered, "My real father,
but I don't know of what exactly... ." The Caucasian juror was only
asked one question about this answer during voir dire—"Without getting
too in depth into the questions that you had that were asked related to
your father, I'm assuming there is nothing related to your father that
would affect your ability to be fair and impartial." In contrast, prospective
juror 36 was asked 18 questions about her answer, 3 by the defense and 15
by the State. Sometime after this questioning, the State entered both
jurors' names into the SCOPE database as part of its independent
investigation. Neither background check turned up information about the
prospective jurors' family members. The African-American juror was
struck, and the Caucasian juror remained on the empaneled jury. We are
not persuaded that the State was seriously concerned about whether a
juror's family member had been prosecuted by the State and whether they
had been convicted of a violent crime, when it asked the Caucasian
prospective juror a single leading question about her father. Disparate
questioning by prosecutors of struck veniremembers and those
veniremembers of another race or ethnicity is evidence of purposeful
discrimination.
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Having considered all the relevant circumstances, we conclude
that the district court clearly erred by allowing the State to exercise a
peremptory challenge to dismiss prospective juror 36. Because this error
is structural, Diomampo v. State, 124 Nev. 414, 423,
185 P.3d 1031, 1037
(2008), we reverse the judgment of conviction and remand this matter to
the district court for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Cherry
We concur:
, J.
Saitta
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DOUGLAS, J., concurring:
I agree with the majority's conclusion that McCarty's Sixth
Amendment right to counsel attached at his initial appearance before the
magistrate and that he waived his right to counsel under the
circumstances presented here. Further, I agree with the majority's
decision to reverse the judgment of conviction and remand for a new trial
based on Batson error. I write separately to highlight my concern over the
district court's handling of McCarty's Batson objection.
Although the three-step Batson analysis is firmly rooted in our
jurisprudence, we continue to see that analysis not being followed.
McCarty challenged the State's peremptory strike against juror 36 as
discriminatory and the State proffered race-neutral reasons to support the
strike. However, the district court ignored step three of the analysis,
which required it to "undertake 'a sensitive inquiry into such
circumstantial and direct evidence of intent as may be available" to
determine whether McCarty met his burden of proving discriminatory
intent. Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 93 (1986) (quoting Arlington
Heights v. Metro. Hous. Dev. Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 266 (1977)); see
Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. 362, 363 (1991); Conner v. State, 130
Nev., Adv. Op. 49, 327 P.3d 503, 509 (2014). That sensitive inquiry
necessarily includes factual findings regarding discriminatory intent, see
Hernandez, 500 U.S. at 364 (observing that the trial court's decision on the
ultimate question of discriminatory intent represents a factual finding),
and credibility determinations, not only concerning the prosecutor but the
juror who is the subject of the Batson challenge, see Snyder v. Louisiana,
552 U.S. 472, 477 (2008) ("[T]he trial court must evaluate not only
whether the prosecutor's demeanor belies a discriminatory intent, but also
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the juror's demeanor can credibly be said to have exhibited the basis for
the strike attributed to the juror by the prosecutor."). The district court
plays a crucial role in evaluating a Batson claim, as we rely on those
determinations to effectively review whether there has been purposeful
discrimination. See Kaczmarek v. State, 120 Nev. 314, 334,
91 P.3d 16, 30
(2004) ("An adequate discussion of the district court's reasoning may be
critical to our ability to assess the district court's resolution of any conflict
in the evidence regarding pretext"); see also Snyder, 552 U.S. at 477
(acknowledging the trial court's "pivotal role in evaluating Batson
claims"); Hernandez, 500 U.S. at 365 (observing that the trial court's
findings concerning discriminatory intent "largely will turn on evaluation
of credibility" and therefore those findings are accorded great deference on
appeal (quoting Batson, 476 U.S. at 98 n.21)).
Here, the district court articulated no factual or credibility
findings regarding the State's proffered race-neutral reasons for striking
juror 36. The record only reflects a lengthy discussion of the SCOPE
searches and the prosecutor's use of the SCOPE database, not a discussion
or analysis of any race-neutral reason for striking this juror. We therefore
cannot make those determinations. That duty fell exclusively on the
district court. Nor did the district court satisfy its obligation to determine
whether McCarty had met his burden of showing purposeful
discrimination. Consequently, the district court has left us in the dark. I
acknowledge, as the majority does, that the pretext argument was not well
developed in the district court. Nevertheless, this case aptly illustrates
why it is crucial that the district court undertake a thoughtful and proper
analysis, not only to adequately assess the merits of a Batson challenge at
the trial level, but to allow this court to effectively evaluate a challenge on
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appeal. A deficient Batson analysis is particularly troubling in capital
prosecutions. When a defendant faces the ultimate punishment—a
sentence of death—it is imperative to follow the letter of the law. See
Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 604 (1978) ("We are satisfied that [the]
qualitative difference between death and other penalties calls for a greater
degree of reliability when the death sentence is imposed."); Furman v.
Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 306 (1972) (Stewart, J., concurring) ("The penalty
of death differs from all other forms of criminal punishment, not in degree
but in kind. It is unique in its total irrevocability."). The letter of the law
was not followed here. Therefore, I would reverse the judgment of
conviction based on the district court's failure to adhere to analysis
mandated under Batson.
tLa 0Q`3 ,J.
Douglas
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PICKERING, J., with whom HARDESTY and GIBBONS, JJ., agree,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
The majority reverses McCarty's judgment of conviction based
on its finding that the State engaged in purposeful racial discrimination,
forbidden under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), when it exercised
a peremptory challenge against prospective juror 36, a 28-year-old,
married, African-American woman. I cannot reconcile this finding with
the record of proceedings in the district court, or controlling law. With the
exception of part I of the opinion, in which I join, I therefore respectfully
dissent.
Batson holds that the Equal Protection Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment forbids prosecutors from exercising peremptory
challenges against prospective jurors based on their race. Id. at 89.
Unlike for-cause challenges, which test a juror's objective impartiality,
peremptory challenges "are often the subjects of instinct," Miller-El v.
Dretke, 545 U.S. 231, 252 (2005) (citing Batson,
476 U.S. at 106 (Marshall,
J., concurring)), "based on subtle impressions and intangible factors,"
Davis v. Ayala, 576 U.S. „ 135 S. Ct. 2187, 2208 (2015), that are
"inherently subjective." Miller-El, 545 U.S. at 266-67 (Breyer, J.,
concurring); see also Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. 352, 374 (1991)
(O'Connor, J., concurring) (plurality opinion) ("Absent intentional
discrimination violative of the Equal Protection Clause, parties should be
free to exercise their peremptory strikes for any reason, or no reason at
all. The peremptory challenge is, 'as Blackstone says, an arbitrary and
capricious right; and it must be exercised with full freedom, or it fails of its
full purpose." (quoting Lewis v. United States, 146 U.S. 370, 378 (1892))).
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A case can be made for eliminating peremptory challenges altogether in
criminal cases, Batson, 476 U.S. at 102-03 (Marshall, J., concurring)
(stating that the only way to "end the racial discrimination that
peremptories inject into the jury-selection process [is to] eliminat[e]
peremptory challenges entirely"); Miller-El, 545 U.S. at 266-67 (Breyer, J.,
concurring) (to similar effect), but this has not occurred Instead, case law
leaves it to the district courts to ferret out discrimination in the exercise of
peremptory challenges, a process that "places great responsibility in the
hands of the trial judge, who is in the best position to determine whether a
peremptory challenge is based on an impermissible factor." Davis, 576
U.S. at 135 S. Ct. at 2208.
A Batson objection triggers a three-step analysis in the district
court: "[(1)] a defendant must make a prima facie showing that a
peremptory challenge has been exercised on the basis of race; [(2)] the
prosecution must offer a race-neutral basis for striking the juror in
question; and [(3)] the trial court must determine whether the defendant
has shown purposeful discrimination." Snyder v. Louisiana, 552 U.S. 472,
476-77 (2008) (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted); accord
Hawkins v. State, 127 Nev. 575, 578,
256 P.3d 965, 967 (2011). Steps two
and three require the district judge to "evaluate both the words and the
demeanor of jurors who are peremptorily challenged, as well as the
credibility of the prosecutor who exercised those strikes." Davis, 576 U.S.
at 135 S. Ct. at 2201. Such "'determinations of credibility and
demeanor lie peculiarly within a trial judge's province," and "in the
absence of exceptional circumstances, [a reviewing court will] defer to the
trial court." Id. (quoting Snyder, 552 U.S. at 477); see Rice v. Collins,
546
U.S. 333, 343 (2006) (Breyer, J., concurring) ("Appellate judges cannot on
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the basis of a cold record easily second-guess a trial judge's decision about
likely motivation."); Watson v. State, 130 Nev., Adv. Op. 76, 335 P.3d 157,
165-66 (2014) ("This court affords great deference to the district court's
factual findings regarding whether the proponent of a strike has acted
with discriminatory intent, Diomampo v. State, 124 Nev. 414, 422-23,
185
P.3d 1031, 1036-37 (2008), and we will not reverse the district court's
decision 'unless clearly erroneous." (quoting Kaczmarek v. State, 120 Nev.
314, 334,
91 P.3d 16, 30 (2004))).
The majority acknowledges these rules but then does not
follow them. Reversing the district court, it deems the race-neutral
reasons the State gave for striking juror 36 pretextual and suggests that
the district court gave the defense unfairly short shrift in adjudicating its
Batson challenge. This holding attributes to the defense a claim of pretext
it did not make and, I respectfully submit, misapprehends the record and
how it evolved in district court.
Juror 36 divulged in her answers to the written jury
questionnaire that her brother had been prosecuted by the Clark County
District Attorney's Office—the same office prosecuting McCarty—and did
time in prison as a result. She did not know the details, though the
defense and the State both pressed her about them. At one point during
the defense's questioning of her, for reasons not entirely clear, juror 36
started to cry. Neither side questioned her further, and both sides passed
her for cause.
In preparing for its peremptory challenges, the State
conducted a Shared Computer Operations for Protection and Enforcement
or SCOPE search on juror 36 to try to find her maiden name and thereby
identify her brother and the crime he was convicted of. Although the State
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Erna
learned juror 36's maiden name, the name was too common for the State
to identify her brother or his crime. But the State's research turned up a
work card authorizing juror 36 to work at a Las Vegas strip club called
"Sin." Though juror 36 had obtained the work card three years earlier,
and was attending college, the card was current and would not expire for
two more years. The State struck juror 36 and, when challenged by the
defense, relied on the facts just summarized.
The majority suggests that the defense challenged the State's
strip-club explanation as pretextual and that, when challenged, the State
scrambled to come up with another reason for excusing juror 36: her
brother's criminal history. This is not accurate. The defendant was
charged with murdering two women he had been pandering as prostitutes
and using to help him deal drugs. Given these alleged facts, not wanting a
woman who worked or had recently worked at a strip club on the jury
provided a facially race-neutral reason for the peremptory challenge. See
Felkner v. Jackson, 562 U.S. 594, 595 (2011) (the trial court did not act
unreasonably in deeming the prosecutor's explanation about not "lik[ing]
to keep social workers" on a jury to be "race-neutral"); Hawkins, 127 Nev.
at 579,
256 P.3d at 967 (holding to similar effect as to peremptory
challenge of a college professor). Indeed, the defense did not argue
otherwise in district court and, at two points in the argument, came very
close to conceding that, in this particular case, striking a woman with a
work card for a Las Vegas strip club from the jury was understandable.
The brother's unexplained criminal history factored into the discussion as
the reason for conducting the SCOPE search on juror 36 (and juror 76, see
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below) and in that light is likewise understandable, not, as the majority
suggests, a flimsy fallback.'
"The transcript is consistent with the account in the text. When
challenged to provide a race-neutral reason for striking juror 36, the State
gave the following account of its reasons:
In our questionnaire, she indicated that her
brother had been convicted by a—of a felony by
our office. When I questioned her about it, you
know, it was, [w]ell, he had picked up warrants,
but I'm really not sure what for. She indicated
that—I asked her if it was about a crime that
[inaudible] which [inaudible] jurors on here with
anybody [inaudible] for the prosecutor of the
crime. She couldn't answer that question.
Afterwards, [defense counsel] was asking
her questions and apparently she had an answer
to a question on the last section related to
something [inaudible]—her feelings concerning
the issue that—that's relevant there, and she did
not put it on the questionnaire but indicated to
[defense counsel] that something happened to her
and she didn't want to tell him about it, and he
didn't press her any further.
Based on that, you know, I really want to
know what her brother did, so I did a little
research into her background, found out—I could
not identify who her brother was, but during the
course of researching her background, I found that
that she has a current valid hard work card for a
strip club, Judge. And so with all due respect, it
was nothing to do with the race, but the State of
Nevada's not going to leave somebody who works
at a strip club on their panel. So. . . .
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The State revealed that it had run a SCOPE search on juror
36 in explaining its reasons for striking her. This prompted the defense to
object to its lack of access to SCOPE and similar law enforcement
databases. When the defense suggested that the State may have run a
SCOPE search on juror 36 in the hopes of unearthing a plausible race-neutral reason for excusing her, the district court did not, as Justice
Douglas's concurrence argues, fail to examine and resolve the purposeful
discrimination claim. On the contrary, the district judge directly
questioned the two prosecutors representing the State about the SCOPE
searches they or anyone working for them had run. The State's lawyers
represented to the court that they ran the searches on two jurors, juror 36
and one other, juror 76, a Caucasian woman whose questionnaire answers
resembled those of juror 36. (Juror 76's father did time in prison, but she
could not say for what; she, too, was married, and the State searched
SCOPE for her maiden name; unlike juror 36, the search did not turn up
anything.) The prosecutors further confirmed that they did not run
SCOPE searches on any other members of the venire, including,
specifically, the three other African Americans remaining after the jury
was passed for cause. The district court then stated, on the record, that it
was "accepting Counsel at his word that the two people he looked up were
[jurors 36 and 761," and, after entertaining additional argument, denied
the defense's motion to strike the jury panel. The district court heard,
considered, and resolved the purposeful discrimination claim the defense
made; it was not obligated to do more. Compare Conner v. State, 130 Nev.,
Adv. Op. 49, 327 P.3d 503, 509 (2014), cert. denied, U.S. ,
135 S. Ct.
2351 (2015) ("[T]he defendant bears a heavy burden in demonstrating
that the State's facially race-neutral explanation is pretext for
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discrimination."), with Hawkins, 127 Nev. at 579,
256 P.3d at 967 ("Batson
does not impose 'an independent duty on the trial court to pore over the
record and compare the characteristics of jurors, searching for evidence of
pretext, absent any pretext argument or evidence presented by counsel.'
(quoting Johnson v. Gibson, 169 F.3d 1239, 1248 (10th Cir. 1999))).
The real focus of the defense's argument in the district court
was on the inequity in the State having access to the SCOPE database
when the defense did not. The voir dire and the appellate briefing in this
case predated our decision in Artiga-Morales v. State, 130 Nev., Adv. Op.
77, 335 P.3d 179 (2014) (4-3), in which a divided en bane court rejected a
challenge to the State's use of criminal databases such as SCOPE in
preparing for voir dire. And here, the defense did not file the written
pretrial motion that the defense did in Artiga-Morales, asking the district
court to compel the State to produce SCOPE search results on the venire—
a deficiency that led the district court in this case to state that the defense
"almost in effect waived" the argument by not filing a written motion.
Nonetheless, the district court granted the defense's oral motion to compel
the State to share with the defense the results of the two SCOPE searches
it ran on jurors 36 and 76. After the prosecutors again confirmed that
these were the only SCOPE searches they or anyone acting for them ran
on the venire, the defense then made a record that for the State to
challenge jurors with incarcerated family members unfairly prejudices
people of color, which argument is reiterated on appeal. The district court
rejected the defense's Batson challenge, and the jury was sworn. Although
the majority suggests otherwise, the district court did not cut the defense
argument off on any of these issues. On the contrary, the transcript of
proceedings on the defense's Batson challenge runs almost 50 pages, with
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the district court excusing the jury and breaking early for lunch so the
lawyers could undertake research over the noon hour, then reconvening
outside the presence of the jury to argue the matter.
The opening and answering briefs on appeal recite the Batson
standards but do little or no analysis of how they should apply to this
record. It is only in the reply brief that the defense actually hints at the
argument that striking juror 36 based on her strip club work card was
pretextual, an argument the majority credits but the defense did not make
in their opening brief or in district court. This is too little, too late. The
burden is on the opponent of the strike to traverse the race-neutral
reason(s) and demonstrate pretext. E.g., Kazmarek, 120 Nev. at 333,
91
P.3d at 29 ("Unless a discriminatory intent is inherent in the prosecutor's
explanation, the reason offered will be deemed race neutral."); Hawkins,
127 Nev. at 579,
256 P.3d at 967 (rejecting Batson challenge where, as
here, the defense did not make in district court the pretext argument
advanced on appeal).
The district court handled the Batson challenge with care. It
allowed the lawyers to make a record outside the presence of the jury and
gave them time to undertake research on the issues they raised. The
district judge witnessed juror 36's demeanor and that of the prosecutors
who exercised a peremptory strike against her. He found no purposeful
discrimination by the State's attorneys. On this record, that factual
finding was not "clearly erroneous" and does not properly serve as a basis
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to vacate the judgment on the jury's verdict and require a new trial in this
case.
I dissent.
We concur:
J.
Hardest
Gibbons
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