Whether the Petitioner has established a prima facie case that Batson v. Kentucky had been violated

QUESTIONS PRESENTED In jury selection for the second trial in this case, the State used 7 of its 12 peremptory challenges on African-Americans, removing only 5 of the 23 qualified whites (22%) but 7 of the 13 qualified AfricanAmericans (54%). In addition, 5 of the excluded African-Americans had characteristics that made them desirable to the State and indistinguishable from most of the whites that the State accepted onto the jury. : For the final juror, the State made a side-by-side comparison between a white and an AfricanAmerican juror. The African-American juror was substantially more attractive than the white juror, because 1) he indicated in his jury questionnaire that he would “always” vote for the death penalty in the case of a rape and murder of a child (stating in voir dire that he could keep an open mind, but was “leaning toward that”); 2) he only believed a confession would not be a reliable indicator of guilt “if somebody confessed 7 something to protect somebody else”; and 3) believed DNA evidence was “pretty solid” and “reliable.” ~ In contrast, the white juror indicated that: 1) confessions were not always reliable evidence of guilt and that a person’s state of mind and interrogator experience could have an effect; 2) confessions should be evaluated critically if conflicting with other witnesses’ statements; 3) some children are “never really given a chance,” that can “be the cause of their future actions”; 4) be had a skepticism of law enforcement (though he was later rehabilitated to say that he did not have reservations judging witnesses on their own merits). The Louisiana Supreme Court ultimately found that there was no prima facie case of a Batson violation, and therefore no need for the State to give race-neutral reasons for their rejection of the AfricanAmerican juror. Also, as to the selection of the final juror, the Louisiana Supreme Court surmised that there must have been some neutral reason for the State’s action. Therefore, the questions presented are: | L Whether the Petitioner has established a prima facie case that Batson v. Kentucky had been violated after the State conducted a side-by-side comparison of a white and a black venire member, and chose the unsympathetic and unattractive white venire member and struck the sympathetic and attractive black venire member? | F | I. Whether the Louisiana Supreme Court should have required the State to present race-neutral reasons, under the Batson paradigm, for its strike of the final African-American venire member, instead of surmising for some unknown reason, that the overall voir dire justified the inclusion of the unsympathetic and unattractive white venire member and the exclusion of the sympathetic and attractive black venire , member? ii