Hayes v. State

I find the Attorney General’s confession of error on the jury selection issue both highly professional and highly perceptive. This case turns on the issue of “genuineness” of defense counsel’s gender-neutral reason for the attempted peremptory strike. Defense counsel’s concern about the prospective juror’s familial relationship with law enforcement officers has been explicitly upheld as gender-neutral. See Rojas v. State, 790 So.2d 1219, 1221 n. 2 (Fla. 3d DCA 2001). As a practical matter, I can scarcely envision a situation where a defense lawyer might not, at a gut level, whether justified…