Harris v. Haeberlin, No. 09-5858 (6th Cir. 2014)
Annotate this CaseAt Harris's state court trial, the court accepted the prosecution’s rationale that Juror 49 was struck “because she had difficulty following questions ... was joking with a neighboring juror who was subsequently struck for cause, and had a grandson who was convicted for his involvement in a shooting.” It was later discovered that a videotape system, reactivated during a trial recess, had recorded a conversation during which a prosecutor commented, “We’ve got ... 49, she’s the old lady, the black lady. The other one is already off.” The Kentucky Supreme Court rejected a direct appeal. Sixth Circuit remanded Harris’s 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition for a hearing to determine whether the prosecutors at his state trial had exercised peremptory strikes in a racially discriminatory manner. The district court held a reconstructed Batson hearing and concluded that the strikes at issue were not motivated by purposeful racial discrimination. Harris appealed with respect to the strike of Juror 49. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, rejecting arguments that the district court erred in concluding that it could hold a meaningful Batson hearing more than 11 years after his state trial and that the prosecution’s strike of Juror 49 was not improperly motivated by racial considerations.
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