Background
Antonio Doyle was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of a twenty-year-old woman in Nevada. During jury selection, the prosecutor struck three black prospective jurors. Doyle challenged the first strike under Batson v. Kentucky, but the trial judge declined to require an explanation at that time because no pattern of exclusion was evident. After the prosecutor provided race-neutral explanations for two subsequent strikes, the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s refusal to revisit the initial strike. The federal district court denied Doyle’s habeas petition, but the Ninth Circuit panel vacated that ruling, holding the state court unreasonably applied Batson.
The court’s reasoning
The Ninth Circuit panel denied the petitions for rehearing, with Judges Fletcher and Miller voting to deny panel rehearing and Judge Lee voting to grant it. For en banc consideration, Judges Miller and Lee voted to deny, and Judge Fletcher recommended denial. The full court failed to receive a majority of votes in favor of en banc consideration. Judge Tung dissented from the denial of rehearing en banc, arguing that the panel majority disregarded the deference owed to state courts under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. Judge Tung contended that the state court complied with Batson by considering the totality of relevant facts and that the panel majority substituted its own view for the state court’s decision.
The dissent
In affording habeas relief to a state prisoner convicted of murder, the panel majority disregarded the deference owed state courts pursuant to the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.
Tung
What it means going forward
The denial of rehearing leaves the Ninth Circuit panel’s decision in place, which vacated the district court’s denial of habeas relief and remanded for an evidentiary hearing on the prosecutor’s reasons for the initial strike.