Hawkins v. State

OPINION

By the Court,

Pickering, J.:

Appellant Collie Hawkins contends that the district court erred by rejecting his challenges to the State’s peremptory challenges of three jurors as impermissible race discrimination under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986). On the record and briefs presented, we cannot sustain this claim.

The defense objected to the State’s peremptory challenges, citing Batson. The State responded with ostensibly race-neutral explanations for its juror strikes. In particular, the State justified removing a Middle-Eastern computer science professor from the jury because…