Summary
The Supreme Court of Ohio held that defense counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to question or strike a juror who had expressed racial bias against Black people. The court concluded that the juror was actually biased and that her empanelment deprived Bates of an impartial jury. The court reversed Bates’s aggravated-murder and other felony convictions and death sentence and remanded for a new trial.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether defense counsel rendered constitutionally ineffective assistance by failing during voir dire to question Juror No. 31 about racially biased questionnaire responses or to strike her despite an available peremptory challenge.
- Whether Juror No. 31's statements that she was sometimes uncomfortable around Black people and that Black people were more violent demonstrated actual racial bias against Bates.
- Whether the convictions and death sentence had to be reversed because an actually biased juror was empaneled through constitutionally deficient counsel.
Holdings
- Defense counsel's failure to ask Juror No. 31 about her racially biased questionnaire responses or to attempt to remove her for cause or by peremptory challenge was objectively unreasonable under Strickland.
- A juror's express racial bias against a racial or ethnic group to which the defendant belongs can establish actual bias against the defendant without a separate statement that the juror is personally biased against that defendant.
- The empanelment of Juror No. 31 deprived Bates of his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel and an impartial jury; the convictions and death sentence therefore could not stand.
Key quotations
“We hold that defense counsel’s performance during voir dire was objectively unreasonable and that counsel’s deficient performance prejudiced Bates by allowing the empaneling of a biased juror in violation of Bates’s Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel.” (¶ 2)
“But actual racial bias may be present without a demonstration of bias against the defendant personally if the juror’s statement rises to a level of generality about a racial or ethnic group that indicates the juror’s inability to be impartial in the particular case before him or her.” (¶ 35)
“Under these facts, we hold that juror No. 31’s statements demonstrate her actual bias against Bates.” (¶ 39)
Factual background
Glenara Bates, a two-year-old child, suffered severe malnutrition and extensive injuries before dying at a hospital in March 2015. Medical evidence attributed her death to battered-child syndrome, starvation, and fatal intracranial hemorrhages; a sibling testified that Bates had swung Glenara by her legs and struck her head against a wall. During police interviews, Bates admitted biting Glenara and eventually acknowledged holding her by the legs and swinging her, although he denied causing the fatal injuries.
Procedural history
A Hamilton County grand jury indicted Bates for aggravated murder, child endangering, and noncapital felony murder, with a capital specification. After a jury trial, Bates was convicted on all counts and the specification; following a mitigation hearing, the jury recommended death and the trial court imposed that sentence along with consecutive noncapital sentences. On direct appeal, the Supreme Court of Ohio reached Bates's ineffective-assistance claim concerning Juror No. 31 and reversed the convictions and death sentence, remanding for a new trial.
Remand instructions
The Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas must conduct a new trial. The convictions and death sentence are reversed.