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Rndon v. Wolf12/28/1995
In this appeal, we are asked to determine if the appellee, Dr. David P. Wolf, exercised his peremptory jury strikes in a civil suit in a racially discriminatory manner. The trial court held he did not. We affirm.
Statement of Facts
The appellant, Jane Rendon, brought a medical malpractice suit against her podiatrist, Dr. Wolf, alleging Wolf was negligent in his choice and performance of foot surgery and did not obtain her informed consent before surgery. After voir dire was complete and both sides exercised their peremptory strikes, Rendon challenged Wolf's strikes of Emma Pena (number 5) and Elias Luna, Jr. (number 24), claiming Wolf discriminated by striking the only two Hispanic veniremembers. The court took judicial notice that Rendon is Hispanic and that Pena and Luna have Spanish surnames. Wolf offered race-neutral reasons for having exercised peremptory strikes against these two veniremembers. Wolf said he struck Emma Pena because: (1) Pena was age 37, the same age as the plaintiff at the time of the alleged malpractice; (2) she said she "could sympathize with" the plaintiff; and (3) she was particularly receptive during voir dire to opposing counsel McConnell. Wolf struck Elias Luna, Jr. because (1) Luna suffered a foot injury three years ago; (2) he saw an orthopedist, not a podiatrist, and there is well-known tension between the two specialties; and (3) he did not have surgery for his injury. The court found Wolf's reasons sufficiently race-neutral to uphold the strikes and found the reasons were not pretext. The jury was impaneled as originally selected and returned a verdict in favor of Wolf. The trial court rendered a takenothing judgement for Rendon.
Batson Challenge
In three points of error, Rendon argues the trial court erred in overruling her Batson objection to the peremptory strikes made by Wolf because: (1) Wolf did not rebut her prima facie case of racial discrimination; (2) the evidence at the Batson hearing was legally and factually insufficient to support the trial court's finding that Wolf gave racially-neutral reasons for his strikes of both Hispanic veniremembers; and (3) the evidence was legally and factually insufficient to support the trial court's finding that Wolf's race-neutral reasons were not pretext.
In Batson, the Supreme Court held that equal protection is denied when race is a factor in the State's exercise of a peremptory challenge to a juror. Texas has extended this holding to apply to jurors challenged by private litigants in a civil case. Powers v. Palacios, 813 S.W.2d 489, 491 (Tex. 1991). The procedure for a Batson challenge is well established. To invoke its protections, a party must raise an inference of purposeful discrimination in the opposing party's use of peremptory strikes. Satterwhite v. State, 858 S.W.2d 412, 423 (Tex. Crim. App. 1993). If the trial court determines a prima facie case exists, the burden shifts to the opposing party to provide a raceneutral explanation for the challenge. Id. In Purkett v. Elem, 115 S. Ct. 1769, 1771 (1995), the Supreme Court held that the race-neutral reason proffered need not be persuasive, or even plausible. Articulation of any race-neutral explanation shifts the burden back to the objecting party to persuade the trial court the explanation is merely sham or pretext. Satterwhite, 858 S.W.2d at 423. Standard of Review
We reverse a trial court's finding of no purposeful discrimination only if it is clearly erroneous. Tennard v. State, 802 S.W.2d 678, 680 (Tex. Crim. App. 1990). To determine if the finding was erroneous, we consider the voir dire of both the challenged juror(s) and of the panel as a whole in the light most favorable to the tria
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