In one of its last decisions of 2016, the New York Court of Appeals held that skin color, in addition to race, ethnicity, and gender, can be the basis for a Batson challenge. The case arose from Queens, where Joseph Bridgeforth, an African-American man was charged with three counts of robbery. During jury selection, the prosecution used its peremptory challenges to strike several prospective jurors, including all five dark-complexioned women. In the 1986 case of Batson v. Kentucky, the Supreme Court of the United States held that peremptory challenges could not be used to dismiss potential jurors based solely on race. Such a strike, the Court held, would violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. Lawyers need to have race-neutral reasons for excluding jurors, and opposing counsel can raise “Batson challenges,” or objections to those peremptory strikes, and demand those race-neutral explanations.
Mr. Bridgeforth lodged a Batson challenge stating that the prosecution deliberately excluded all five women with dark complexion, four of whom were African-American, and one who was Indian-American. The prosecution had race-neutral rationales for striking the four African-American jurors, but failed to provide one for the Indian-American woman. Regardless, the trial court did not delve deeper into the question and simply dismissed the juror at issue. Mr. Bridgeforth was convicted and subsequently filed an appeal claiming that the trial court erred in permitting the peremptory strike of the Indian-American woman, as she was a part of a cognizable class due to her skin tone. Thus, Mr. Bridgeforth argued, the prosecution illegally struck her from the jury under the precedent set by Batson. The prosecution argued that skin color is not a protected class and therefore cannot form the basis of a Batson challenge, as all Batson requires is race-neutral, not color-neutral, reasons for dismissing jurors.
