Background
Cincinnati police conducted an undercover prostitution operation in March 2024. After an undercover officer introduced herself to Fernando Trevino as “Sidney,” another officer continued communicating with him under that name. Trevino eventually offered ten Suboxone pills in exchange for sex and was arrested when he arrived at the planned meeting place.
During jury selection, the State used two of its three peremptory challenges to remove the venire’s only two African-American women. Trevino raised a challenge under Batson v. Kentucky, arguing that the strikes were racially discriminatory. The trial court accepted the prosecutor’s stated reasons and denied the challenge. The jury later convicted Trevino of solicitation but acquitted him of possessing criminal tools.
The Court’s Holding
The First District held that the trial court erred in denying Trevino’s Batson challenge as to Juror 10. The prosecutor said she struck Juror 10 because the juror’s son had recently been convicted of burglary and imprisoned, which could cause the juror to distrust prosecutors or police or sympathize with Trevino. But Juror 10 had denied that her son’s case would affect her impartiality and denied harboring negative feelings toward the prosecutor or police involved in that case.
The majority concluded that the explanation was pretextual when considered alongside the State’s treatment of Juror 14, a white woman whose sister had been arrested and who expressed mixed feelings about police but was not struck. It also relied on the prosecutor’s limited questioning about possible sympathy for Trevino, the use of two strikes against the only two African-American women, and the prosecutor’s reliance on assumptions about relatives of people convicted of crimes. Because excluding even one juror for a discriminatory reason violates Batson, the court reversed the conviction and remanded for a new trial without reaching Trevino’s remaining assignments of error. Judge Zayas dissented, reasoning that Jurors 10 and 14 were not similarly situated and that the majority failed to defer adequately to the trial court’s credibility determination.
Key Takeaways
- A facially race-neutral justification at Batson’s second step may still be pretextual at the third step when the record and the prosecutor’s treatment of comparable jurors undermine it.
- The majority found significant that the State retained a white juror with a family connection to criminal proceedings and mixed feelings about police while striking an African-American juror who denied bias.
- A discriminatory strike against a single prospective juror requires reversal; the defendant need not establish that every challenged strike was discriminatory.
Why It Matters
The decision emphasizes that trial courts must assess a prosecutor’s stated reason for a peremptory strike in the context of the entire voir dire record, including whether comparable nonminority jurors were treated differently. Merely identifying a facially neutral concern does not complete the Batson analysis.
The divided opinion also highlights the tension between comparative-juror analysis and appellate deference to trial judges’ credibility findings. For trial attorneys, it underscores the importance of creating a detailed record concerning juror similarities, differences, questioning, and asserted grounds for each challenged strike.