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407 N.W.2d 821

State v. Farmer

South Dakota Supreme Court

Decided June 10, 1987

South Dakota Supreme Court · decided 1987-06-10

Relies on Batson v. Kentucky

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1987-06-10

How this case has been cited

Cited by 14 later decisions — most recently April 2013

13 state decisions

601987199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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HENDERSON, Justice

¶1(specially concurring).

¶2Generally, I agree with the Chief Justice’s writing in this case.

¶3Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), does not seem to reflect “specific guidelines” for the trial court and it appears the Chief Justice of this State has aptly paraphrased Batson.

¶4Frankly, this case suffers from a rather poor record concerning the discrimination issue. I am troubled by the fact that the trial judge did apparently make this remark: “I don’t believe it’s necessary during the voir dire to even establish the fact for the reason why the prosecutor would dismiss a juror.” Such a statement seems *826to pass over the factors set forth in Bat-son.

¶5Notwithstanding this comment of the trial court, I am convinced that there was not a discriminatory peremptory challenge in this case. Surely — a marriage relationship between the prospective juror and defendant — is a legitimate reason for exercising a peremptory challenge. Thus, the “inference of purposeful discrimination” was met and overcome. See reference to “inference of purposeful discrimination” in Batson, 476 U.S. at -, 106 S.Ct. at 1722, 90 L.Ed.2d at 87.

¶6I wish to add that the last paragraph of Justice Miller’s writing, in my opinion, has merit in that an in camera proceeding would promote the best interests of justice. Of course, the in camera hearing should be on the record so that an appellate tribunal can sink its teeth into the truth. At the hearing, it can be determined whether or not the intent of the prosecutor is within the limits of permissible racial neutral selection.

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