People v. Walker

Appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Queens *427County (Beerman, J.), rendered April 9, 1992, convicting him of robbery in the third degree, upon a jury verdict, and imposing sentence.

Ordered that the judgment is reversed, on the law, and a new trial is ordered.

Having issued a sua sponte determination that the defense counsel was systematically excluding whites from the jury, the trial court called upon counsel to articulate a nondiscriminatory explanation for his peremptory challenge to the prospective juror who was eventually seated as juror number 11. The defense…