Buckley

I. Introduction

Appellants Daniel Adam Wade (Wade) and Paul Christopher Buckley (Buckley) (collectively appellants) were convicted by a jury of various charges stemming from a shoot-out with police officers from the Richmond Police Department when the latter attempted to serve a search warrant at their apartment.

Appellants raise the following trial errors on appeal: (1) the trial court improperly denied their Wheeler/Batson motion; 1 (2) the jury committed prejudicial misconduct; (3) the prosecutor committed misconduct; (4) appellants’ motion to suppress evidence was improperly denied; (5) the trial court erred by excluding evidence as to what a reasonable person would have believed when the officers started battering the apartment door; (6) police testimony about the mental state of marijuana sellers was erroneously admitted; (7) the trial court erred in admitting the search warrant; (8) the trial court failed to properly instruct the jury on the mental element of knowledge; (9) the trial court erred in denying appellants’ requested jury instruction on the reliability of spontaneous statements; (10) the trial court erred by failing to properly instruct on the issue of…

I respectfully dissent. The majority’s strained effort to conjure up a racially neutral explanation for the peremptory challenge of Vera Rutherford is defeated by the record, which provides no such explanation. There is simply no fair basis upon which to approve the trial court’s failure to call upon the district attorney to offer such an explanation, if he could, or, at the very least, to respond to the motion by explaining why no *670 prima facie case had been made. On the basis of little more than post hoc judicial guesswork, the majority undermines the important constitutional principle articulated in People v. Wheeler (1978) 22 Cal.3d 258 [ 148 Cal.Rptr. 890 , 583 P.2d 748 ] and Batson v. Kentucky (1986) 476 U.S. 79 [ 106 S.Ct. 1712 , 90 L.Ed.2d 69 ].

The problem in this case is not so much the presence of racial discrimination in the selection of the jury—for that has not been dispositively established—but the abdication of trial court responsibility to satisfactorily determine the presence of such discrimination, which is as pernicious and even more ominous a problem.

As Justice Mosk pointed out in Wheeler , “the courts cannot be pacifists” in the “war” between racial…

[Opinion certified for partial publication. [†] ]

OPINION

HAERLE, J. —

Appellants Daniel Adam Wade (Wade) and Paul Christopher Buckley (Buckley) (collectively appellants) were convicted by a jury of various charges stemming from a shoot-out with police officers from the Richmond Police Department when the latter attempted to serve a search warrant at their apartment.

Appellants raise the following trial errors on appeal: (1) the trial court improperly denied their Wheeler/Batson motion; [1] (2) the jury committed prejudicial misconduct; (3) the prosecutor committed misconduct; (4) appellants' motion to suppress evidence was improperly denied; (5) the trial court erred by excluding evidence as to what a reasonable person would have believed when the officers started battering the apartment door; (6) police testimony about the mental state of marijuana sellers was erroneously admitted; (7) the trial court erred in admitting the search warrant; (8) the trial court failed to properly instruct the jury on the mental element of knowledge; (9) the trial court erred in denying appellants' requested jury instruction on the reliability of spontaneous statements; (10) the trial court…