Bertram Rice, Warden, et al. v. Steven Martell Collins (546 U.S. 333)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided January 18, 2006 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 546 U.S. 333 · 126 S. Ct. 969
- Decided
- January 18, 2006
- Term
- October Term 2005
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Kennedy
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court. Concerned that, in this habeas corpus case, a federal court set aside reasonable state-court determinations of fact in favor of its own debatable interpretation of the record, we granted certiorari. Our review confirms that the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit erred, misapplying settled rules that limit its role and authority. I After a 4-day trial in the Superior Court of California for the County of Los Angeles, á jury convicted Steven Martell Collins on one count of possessing cocaine. The conviction was all the more serious because it subjected him to California’s three strikes rule for sentencing. The question at issue in this federal habeas corpus action, however, is the California courts’ rejection of Collins’ argument that the prosecutor struck a young, African-American woman, Juror 16, from the panel on account of her race. A second African-American juror was also the subject of a peremptory strike, and although Collins challenged that strike in the trial court, on appeal he objected only to the excusal of Juror 16. Even prior to this Court’s decision in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79 (1986), California courts barred peremptory challenges to jurors based on race. People v. Wheeler, 22 Cal. 3d 258, 583 P. 2d 748 (1978). Although our recent decision in Johnson v. California, 545 U. S. 162 (2005), disapproved…
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