Rice v. Collins

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Rice v. Collins
9th Cir. 2003); cert. granted, 545 U.S. 1151 (2005).
Holding
Habeas corpus relief may not be granted on the basis of debatable inferences used to overturn the trial court's finding.
Court membership
Chief Justice
John Roberts
Associate Justices
John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor
Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy
David Souter · Clarence Thomas
Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer
Case opinions
MajorityKennedy, joined by unanimous
ConcurrenceBreyer, joined by Souter
Laws applied
28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2)

Rice v. Collins, 546 U.S. 333 (2006), was a decision by the

remanded, stating that the dismissal was unreasonable based, among other reasons, on the lack of evidence that the eye rolling had occurred.[4]

History

In

inter alia, the ultimate burden of proving or disproving racial motivation for the strike always falls on the party challenging the strike.[1]

Facts of the case

Steven Martell Collins, an African American male, was on trial in the

Three Strikes sentencing law. During jury selection, the prosecutor removed an African American woman, Juror 16, on a peremptory challenge. When Collins contended that the juror was removed because of her race, the prosecutor listed race-neutral reasons for the challenge. These reasons included that the juror had "rolled her eyes" in response to a question, that because of her youth she may be tolerant of drugs, and that she lacked sufficient ties to the community.[1] The trial court stated that it did not see the rolling of the eyes by Juror 16 but agreed that she was youthful, and while noting that a white male juror was also dismissed for being youthful, ruled it would give the prosecutor "the benefit of the doubt" and allow the juror strike to stand.[1] Collins was convicted and received a 25-year sentence
.

Appeals

Collins appealed his case to the

California Supreme Court denied review, Collins filed a petition for habeas corpus
in the Federal District Court. The District Court conducted a full review and found the claim was without merit.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reviewed the evidence and concluded that, since the trial court had not witnessed Juror 16's alleged "eye rolling", that the trial judge erred in accepting the prosecutor's version of the eye rolling incident. It noted that the prosecutor's credibility had been previously undermined by other erroneous statements. For example, the prosecutor said that Juror 19, another prospective African-American juror, was too youthful despite the fact that she was a grandmother and attempted to use gender as a basis for exclusion. On this basis, the court overturned Collins' conviction.

The U.S. Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari.

Finding

The Supreme Court held that the Ninth Circuit's "attempt to use a set of debatable inferences to set aside the conclusion" fails to satisfy the

remanded, stating "Reasonable minds reviewing the record might disagree about the prosecutor's credibility, but on habeas review that does not suffice to supersede the trial court's credibility determination."[1]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b c d e f Rice v. Collins, 546 U.S. 333 (2006). Public domain This article incorporates public domain material from this U.S government document.
  2. ^ "Foot Stomping & Eye Rolling - Effective Ways to Upset Your Parents?". Archived from the original on October 22, 2007. Retrieved October 28, 2007.
  3. ^ "Simon Cowell Defends Himself After Eye-Rolling". The San Francisco Chronicle. April 18, 2007. Retrieved October 28, 2007.
  4. ^ "Rice v. Collins". Duke Law School. Archived from the original on September 3, 2007. Retrieved October 28, 2007.
  5. ^ "Challenging peremptory challenges". American Psychological Association. September 8, 2005. Retrieved October 28, 2007.

External links

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