Whether the Supreme Court of North Carolina violated this Court's clear precedent when it held that trial judges have 'broad discretion' to refuse to consider a prosecutor's personal history of racially disparate strikes at the prima facie stage of the Batson inquiry?

QUESTION PRESENTED Thanks to a well-known study of twenty years of capital jury selection in North Carolina, the defense knew going into trial that Mr. Richardson’s prosecutor had a personal history of striking Black jurors at a rate nearly quadruple that of other jurors. When that pattern once again emerged during jury selection in this case, the defense objected under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986). But when the defense attempted use its data to support its prima facie case, the trial court categorically refused to consider the data on the grounds it was “hearsay.” On direct appeal, Mr. Richardson argued that this Court’s precedent obligated the trial court to at least consider the “relevant history of the State’s peremptory strikes in past cases” at step one of the Batson inquiry. Flowers v. Mississippi, 139 S. Ct. 2228 (2019). The Supreme Court of North Carolina rejected that argument. But not on the grounds that the rules of evidence apply to Batson hearings in North Carolina and were properly applied. Rather, consistent with its long record of misapplying Batson, it held that “[iJn light of the broad discretion given to trial courts” at the first stage of the inquiry, it did “not perceive clear error in the trial court’s decision to sustain the State’s hearsay objection[.]” State v. Richardson, 891 8.E.2d 132, 205 (N.C. 2023). The question presented for review is: Whether the Supreme Court of North Carolina violated this Court’s clear precedent when it held that trial judges have “broad discretion” to refuse to consider a prosecutor’s personal history of racially disparate strikes at the prima facie stage of the Batson inquiry? INDEX CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS INVOLVED.