960 So. 2d 1192 - State v. Benton’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 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 2 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[The defendant] submits that the state offered weak factual reasons for its first two peremptory challenges, of Mr. Roggerson and Ms. Bass, a suspicious age-based reason for another, Ms. Nobles, and no reasons at all (a "gut feeling") for the other two, of Ms. Turner and Ms. Price. He concedes that the district court's evaluation of discriminatory intent is due great deference. Hernandez v. New York , 500 U.S. 352 , 111 S.Ct. 1859 , 114 L.Ed.2d 395 (1991). He nevertheless concludes that the state's reasons do not withstand Batson analysis and the case must be reversed. .... The question is somewhat closer with Ms. Price. The cold record offers little guidance; at voir dire, in response to general questioning, she never volunteered an answer, and on four occasions when directly asked, she replied with a simple "yes" or "no." After observing the proceedings, the district court may well have felt that this translated to lack of attention or responsiveness, a valid race-neutral explanation. State v. Ellis , [05-1569 (La. 7/10/06), 936 So.2d 791 ]. The court stated for the record that both prosecutor and defense counsel were African Americans, and the prosecutor confirmed that she was under no instructions to assure that the jury had any specific racial or gender makeup. In the totality of the circumstances, we cannot say the court's decision to grant this peremptory challenge was an abuse of discretion.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Anderson