23 Cal. 3d 286 - People v. Allen’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 49 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 60 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “• The prosecutor struck every single African American called to the jury box (Combs, Jones, Luqman, Spiller, Penn, Fuller, Threets, and Frazier), and he used a disproportionate number of peremptory challenges against them. Specifically, he struck 100 percent of the African American prospective jurors (eight of eight) and 53 percent of his peremptory challenges (eight of fifteen) were directed against African Americans. This was disproportionately higher than the percentage of African Americans within the qualified venire (14.5 percent). • In sharing his strike list, the prosecutor gave the defense advance notice of the fact that he intended to exclude eight African American venirepersons (Penn, Fuller, Threets, Frazier, Beavers, Martin, Pigrum, and Wylie) if they were called to the jury box. The prosecutor ultimately struck four African Americans who were not on the prosecutor’s strike list (Combs, Jones, Luqman, and Spiller), demonstrating to defense counsel an intent to strike twelve African American prospective jurors. The latter four jurors were all highly rated by the defense. 6 • The prospective African American jurors had only their group identification in common, and in all other respects, were as heterogeneous as the community as a whole. The eight African American jurors excluded by the prosecutor differed in age, gender, employment, and social status. Of the eight, three were men, five were women, and their occupations and ages all varied: Willetta Combs (female in”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Mitcham v. Davis

2. “[i]f the court finds that a prima facie case has been made, the burden shifts to the other party to show if he can that the peremptory challenges in question were not predicated on group bias alone.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 42 Cal. 3d 711 - People v. Turner

3. “on grounds that were reasonably relevant to the particular case on trial or its parties or witnesses — i.e., for reasons of specific bias as defined herein.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 42 Cal. 3d 711 - People v. Turner