Ex parte Christopher Anthony Floyd.

In 2005, Christopher Floyd was convicted of capital murder for the death of Waylon Crawford, for which he received the death penalty. The United State Supreme Court vacated the Alabama Supreme Court’s judgment in this case, and remanded for reconsideration in light of its recent holding in “Foster v. Chatman,” (136 S.Ct. 1737 (2016)). In selecting the jury for Floyd's case, the prosecutor and Floyd's counsel exercised a total of 36 peremptory challenges. The State used its 18 challenges to remove 10 of 11 African-American veniremembers and 12 of 18 female veniremembers. Floyd’s “Batson” or “J.E.B.” challenges to the venire (precedential cases prohibiting racial or gender discrimination in jury selection) were rejected by the trial court. The trial court found that Floyd had not demonstrated that the prosecutor had engaged in actual, purposeful discrimination during the jury-selection process, and that the prosecutor had proffered race- and gender-neutral reasons for his peremptory strikes. Floyd petitioned the Alabama Supreme Court for certiorari review of the Court of Criminal Appeals' decision to uphold the trial court’s judgment. The United States Supreme Court then vacated the Alabama Court's judgment upholding the Court of Criminal Appeals and remanded the case for further consideration in light of “Foster.” In his supplemental briefing, Floyd contended that the record in his case, like the record in “Foster,” established that the State improperly focused on race and gender during the jury-selection process. Rather, it was during plain-error review of the record by the Court of Criminal Appeals that that court determined that the prosecutor's use of his peremptory challenges created a prima facie case of discrimination under both Batson and J.E.B. and remanded the case for a Batson/J.E.B. hearing. After the Alabama Court’s reconsideration of the Batson/J.E.B. issues in light of Foster, as mandated by the United States Supreme Court, the Alabama Court reinstated its judgment in this matter and once again affirmed the Court of Criminal Appeals. View "Ex parte Christopher Anthony Floyd." on Justia Law