United States v. Lawrence Lewis, Jr.

Lawrence Lewis, Jr., was tried and convicted under 18 U.S.C. § 1111 (1982) for the second-degree murder of his two-year-old stepson, Jordan Francis..

On appeal, the defendant challenges: 1) the prosecutor’s use of a peremptory challenge to excuse a black juror; 2) the trial court’s exclusion of expert psychiatric testimony concerning the defendant’s state of mind; and 3) the trial court’s admission of evidence concerning a prior battery of the same child by the defendant.

On the evening of June 17, 1986, the defendant brought his unconscious stepson to the hospital emergency room at the Fort Huachuca Army base in Arizona. Attempts to revive the child were unsuccessful. Examinations by an Army doctor and an Army criminal investigator revealed recent bruises to the child’s thigh, arm, back and forehead. An autopsy indicated that the child died from severe brain swelling as a result of blunt force injuries to his head and body.

At trial, the defendant testified that in disciplining the child for defecating on the floor he had hit him with a belt and slapped him on his head before giving him a bath, which the defendant viewed as punishment. He testified that as a child he had been…