The very popular Ann Althouse has a recent post discussing Dolphy v. Mantello(2nd Circuit Court of Appeals). In Dolphy, the black defendant raised, among other things, a Batson claim arguing that the prosecutor improperly exercised his peremptory challenge to remove the only black juror in the jury pool. In response to this charge, the prosecutor claimed that he removed the black juror not because of her race but due to her size. According to the prosecutor, this particular juror was grossly overweight. Even though the prosecutor had approved of other overweight jurors, the trial court accepted this rational and the defendant was ultimately convicted.
On appeal, the Court of Appeals found that the trial court when examining the defendant's Batson claim failed to properly apply the 3rd prong of Batson. Specifically, the Court of Appeals found that the trial court failed to assess the credibility of the prosecutor's rational for striking the black juror. According to the Court of Appeals, the prosecutor's explanation "rested precariously on an intuited correlation between body fat and sympathy for persons accused of crimes (seeming without regard to the weight of the defendant)."
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