Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
William Pollard sought federal habeas corpus relief, arguing that the prosecutor's use of a peremptory challenge to strike a Black juror, identified as Ms. S, violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights under Batson v. Kentucky. The Eastern District of California, Judge William B. Shubb presiding, denied the petition. Pollard appealed. The Ninth Circuit panel decided the case without oral argument in an unpublished memorandum disposition. The memorandum notes that the parties knew the history and does not recount the underlying prosecution or conviction.
The panel had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. sections 1291 and 2253 and reviewed the denial of the petition de novo. Under AEDPA, relief on a claim the state court decided on the merits is available only if that decision was contrary to, or unreasonably applied, clearly established Supreme Court precedent, or rested on an unreasonable determination of the facts. The last reasoned state decision, and so the one under review, was the California Court of Appeal's decision on direct review.
The Court’s Holding
On the legal prong, the panel held that the California Court of Appeal's rejection of the Batson claim was neither contrary to nor an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law. Pollard argued that the state court's comparative juror analysis relied on differences between jurors unrelated to the prosecutor's stated reasons. The panel found no clearly established law requiring a court to confine its comparison to the factors the prosecutor cited. Miller-El v. Dretke bars courts from substituting a reason to rehabilitate an otherwise impermissible strike, but it does not stop them from mentioning other differences between jurors. Because the state court squarely addressed the jurors' views on circumstantial evidence and could weigh the challenge in light of all relevant evidence, its consideration of additional factors was not an application of federal law with which no fairminded jurist would agree.
The panel also held that federal law did not require the state court to address the prosecutor's allegedly disparate questioning of Ms. S. Disparate questioning can be evidence of discrimination, but state courts need not make detailed findings on all the evidence, and such questioning alone does not establish a Batson violation. The panel concluded that the prosecutor's focus on Ms. S followed from her answers and reflected ordinary race-neutral considerations.
On the factual prong, review is doubly deferential. The panel found that Pollard did not show it was unreasonable to conclude that Ms. S would be unwilling to infer intent from circumstantial evidence alone, while Juror No. 10 would be willing. Ms. S said she needed more than the prosecutor's hypothetical, while Juror No. 10 agreed she would use everything that happened to draw a conclusion about intent. Ms. S also said she did not know what the prosecutor wanted her to say, and the prosecutor thought she was guessing at the right answer. Pollard failed to show that the state court had no permissible alternative but to reject the prosecutor's race-neutral justifications. The panel affirmed.
Key Takeaways
- A federal habeas petitioner raising a Batson claim must satisfy section 2254(d), and the panel treated failure on both prongs as dispositive.
- The panel found no clearly established federal law that confines a state court's comparative juror analysis to the reasons the prosecutor gave for the strike.
- Disparate questioning of a juror can be evidence of discrimination, but by itself it does not establish a Batson violation, especially when the questioning follows from the juror's answers.
- Factual findings supporting a prosecutor's race-neutral reasons receive doubly deferential review, and mere disagreement among reasonable minds does not justify overturning them.
- The panel decided only that Pollard failed to show the state court was unreasonable under AEDPA. It did not independently decide whether the strike was free of discrimination.
Why It Matters
This is a non-precedential memorandum, citable only as permitted by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3, so it does not bind later panels. Even so, it shows how the Ninth Circuit applies AEDPA to Batson claims that rest on comparisons between a struck juror and seated jurors. A petitioner cannot succeed simply by showing that jurors differed in ways the prosecutor did not mention, or that the questioning of a juror was not identical. The petitioner must tie the state court's reasoning to a specific unreasonable application of Supreme Court law or to an unreasonable reading of the record.
The decision leaves open the merits of the Batson claim viewed outside the AEDPA framework. It also does not announce a new rule about comparative analysis. It holds only that no clearly established law required the limits Pollard proposed.