Hernandez v. State

This is an appeal by the defendant Fernando Hernandez from a judgment of conviction and sentence for robbery which was entered below upon an adverse jury verdict. We reverse and remand for a new trial based on the following briefly stated legal analysis.

First, we conclude that the trial court committed reversible error in allowing the state, over a defense objection, to exercise peremptory challenges on two Black prospective jurors. A prima facie showing was made on this record that the peremptory challenges were exercised by the state on the above jurors solely because they were Black;…