TONY DAVIS, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.
The Fourth District affirmed the trial court's overruling of peremptory challenge objections, holding that a venireperson's relative having been charged with a crime is a race-neutral reason for striking a juror and that the trial court's credibility assessment regarding the prosecutor's explanation was not clearly erroneous.
A venireperson's relative having been charged with a crime is a race-neutral reason for exercising a peremptory challenge, and the trial court's credibility assessment of the prosecutor's explanation for striking a juror is reviewed for clear error and will not be overturned absent clear error.
[1] A venireperson's relative having been charged with a crime constitutes a race-neutral reason for exercising a peremptory challenge.
Previewing 1 of 1 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“That a venireperson has a relative who has been charged with a crime is a race-neutral reason for exercising a peremptory challenge.”
The court established the legal standard for evaluating peremptory challenges based on family criminal history.
The state exercised peremptory challenges during jury selection. The appellant objected to the state's use of peremptory challenges at trial, challeng…
The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.
Explore caselaw by topic → Browse Race-Neutral Reason cases and more on FLexlaw
PER CURIAM.
In this appeal appellant challenges the state’s use of peremptory challenges. The trial court overruled appellant’s objections at trial. We affirm. That a venireperson has a relative who has been charged with a crime is a race-neutral reason for exercising a peremptory challenge. See Fotopoulos v. State, 608 So. 2d 784 (Fla.1992). The trial court’s assessment of the credibility of the state’s explanation for the strike should be “affirmed on appeal unless clearly erroneous.” Melbourne v. State, 679 So. 2d 759, 764-65 (Fla.1996); King v. Byrd, 716 So. 2d 831, 833-34 (Fla. 4th DCA 1998). Although the state accepted venireperson Sapia as a juror despite the fact that her husband had been arrested, the prosecutor explained that he had not stricken the juror because of her prior jury experience and his desire to seat a jury without calling to the jury pool for additional jurors. To seat a jury was a concern of the parties at trial, since the state withdrew a challenge to a juror to seat an alternate with the agreement of all the attorneys. The trial court’s ruling in this case turned on “credibility determinations which encompass the assessment of all the circumstances and dynamics of the trial setting.” King, 716 So. 2d at 834. This is not one of those few types of cases contemplated by King where it is appropriate for an appellate court to override a discretionary call of the trial judge.
AFFIRMED.
STONE, C.J., WARNER and GROSS, JJ., concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Authorities Cited
- Jeanie H. Melbourne v. State, 679 So. 2d 759 (Fla. 1996)
- Konstantinos X. Fotopoulos v. State, 608 So. 2d 784 (Fla. 1992)
- William Bryan King, M.D. v. Byrd, 716 So. 2d 831 (Fla. 4th DCA 1998)