COURT NEVER RULED ON WHETHER THE PROSECUTOR’S INITIAL REASON FOR EXCLUDING AN AFRICAN-AMERICAN POTENTIAL JUROR WAS A CREDIBLE RACE-NEUTRAL REASON, THE REASONS OFFERED AFTER THE JUROR WAS QUESTIONED FURTHER SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN CONSIDERED, NEW TRIAL ORDERED (SECOND DEPT

The Second Department, reversing defendant’s conviction, determined the trial court did not handle the Batson challenge to the prosecutor’s striking an African American juror correctly. When asked about her reasons, the prosecutor said the potential juror was too young to sit on a murder trial. Upon further questioning the potential juror had difficulty understanding and answering questions. But the court never ruled whether the prosecutor’s initial reason for excluding the potential juror, his youth, was a credible race-neutral explanation:

New York courts apply the three-step test of Batson v Kentucky (476 US 79) to determine whether a party has used peremptory challenges to exclude potential jurors for an impermissible discriminatory reason… . “The first step requires that the moving party make a prima facie showing of discrimination in the exercise of peremptory challenges; the second step shifts the burden to the nonmoving party to provide race-neutral reasons for each juror being challenged; and the third step requires the court to make a factual determination as to whether the race-neutral reasons are merely a pretext for discrimination” … .

… [T]he Supreme Court failed in its duty to determine whether the prosecutor’s race-neutral explanations were credible (see … United States v Taylor, 636 F3d 901, 905 [7th Cir] [“when ruling on a Batson challenge, the trial court should consider only the reasons initially given to support the challenged strike, not additional reasons offered after the fact”]). People v Alexander, 2019 NY Slip Op 00135, Second Dept 1-9-19