Conviction Oveturned Becuase of Improper Peremptories by Prosecutor

People v. Cisneros

The defendant’s two counts of making a criminal threat are reversed for the following reasons:

1) the trial court erred in denying defendant's Batson/Wheeler motions alleging that the prosecutor had discriminated against men in exercising peremptory challenges during jury selection;

2) purposeful discrimination in the exercise of peremptory challenges is structural error that is reversible per se; and

3) the prosecutor's failure to articulate anything about Jurors 6 and 32 as the basis for striking them after the trial court had found a prima facie case of group bias did nothing to dispel the reasonable inference that the prosecutor preferred women to men and was exercising her peremptory challenges to effect that preference.

h/tip FindLaw