“Jury service is one of the most significant ways in which an individual can directly participate in the administration of justice and influence the adjudicative process. Yet the right of a prospective juror to be free from discrimination in her participation in jury service is put at risk by a litigant's unfettered discretion in the use of the peremptory challenge.' In order to safeguard a potential juror's equal protection guarantee against discriminatory exclusion from jury service, the United States Supreme Court, in Batson v. Kentucky and its progeny, imposed significant restrictions on the way in which litigants exercise peremptory challenges. Litigants may not base peremptory challenges on the race, ethnicity, or gender of a prospective juror.
The Supreme Court's limitations on the way in which litigants utilize peremptory challenges demonstrates the superiority of a prospective juror's constitutional rights over the litigant's privilege to exercise peremptory challenges.” BATSON MEETS THE FIRST AMENDMENT: PROHIBITING PEREMPTORY CHALLENGES THAT VIOLATE A PROSPECTIVE JUROR'S SPEECH AND ASSOCIATION RIGHTS, by Assistant Professor of Law, New England School of Law. J.D., Hofstra University School of Law, 1986.
Gregory Lasak, former Supreme Court Justice and now candidate for Queens District Attorney, was the judge on the case of People v Diamonte Alexander. In 2016 Diamonte Alexander (18 years old) was found guilty by a jury of the November 2012 murder of a young man in Rockaway, Queens. On appeal Alexander alleged that during jury selection, the prosecutor sought to exclude a potential juror “based solely on the potential juror’s race.”
The New York Law Journal reported “A Second Department panel found the former Queens criminal judge had failed to properly handle a 'Batson' challenge by the defense, sending the case back for retrial.
Former Queens state judge turned district attorney candidate Gregory Lasak has seen a recent manslaughter conviction secured in his courtroom reversed on appeal, after the panel found he failed to properly handle concerns of racial bias in a move that kept a prospective juror who was black off the case.
The reversal and remittance for a new trial in Queens Supreme Court comes during the early days of Lasak’sbid to replace Richard Brown, who announced last week he wouldn’t run for re-election as DA.” DA Hopeful, Ex-Judge Lasak Reversed Over Handling of DA Bias in Jury Selection, By Colby Hamilton, New York Law Journal.
People v Alexander 2019 NY Slip Op 00135 Decided on January 9, 2019 Appellate Division, Second Department. This is the relevant part of the court’s decision.
DECISION & ORDER
Appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Queens County (Gregory Lasak, J.), rendered October 24, 2016, convicting him of manslaughter in the first degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree (two counts), upon a jury verdict, and imposing sentence.
ORDERED that the judgment is reversed, on the law, and the matter is remitted to the Supreme Court, Queens County, for a new trial.
The Supreme Court should not have granted the prosecutor's peremptory challenge to a prospective black juror because the court failed to determine whether the prosecutor provided sufficient race-neutral explanations for challenging the potential juror…
Here, during jury selection, the defendant alleged that the prosecutor was exercising a peremptory challenge to a potential juror based solely on the potential juror's race. After the Supreme Court found that the defendant made a prima facieshowing that the prosecutor was exercising her peremptory challenges in a discriminatory manner, the prosecutor stated that she believed this potential juror to be too young and inexperienced to serve on a murder trial. The court allowed for further questioning of this potential juror and, based on this additional questioning, determined that the potential juror seemed to have difficulty understanding the questions posed to him, that he appeared to have "a glazed-eye look," and that his "ability to communicate is somewhat impaired." The court then allowed the prosecutor to exercise a peremptory challenge against the potential juror, deeming the peremptory challenge to be not "in any way based on any discrimination." However, the court never provided a ruling on the defendant's initial Batson challenge, relating to the prosecutor's contention that the juror was too young and inexperienced to serve.
Under these circumstances, the Supreme Court failed in its duty to determine whether the prosecutor's race-neutral explanations were credible.
Gregory Lasak was the head Queens ADA in the case of People v. Allah McCall (19 years old) in 2001. The Queens DA’s press release announcing McCall’s conviction of murder stated “Assistant District Attorney Claude N. Stuart of the District Attorney’s Homicide Trials Bureau, under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney Daniel A. Sauders and the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Gregory L. Lasak, prosecuted the case.”
On March 14, 2004 the Appellate Division, Second Department found in the McCall case that the "Supreme Court committed reversible error when it permitted the prosecutor to exercise a peremptory challenge to exclude a prospective juror because she was of Jamaican ancestry." People v McCall 2004 NY Slip Op 01800 [5 AD3d 608] March 15, 2004. The Court ordered a new trial.
On June 30, 2004 the New York Post reported that McCall "who was convicted of gunning down a teen over a gold chain, only to have the verdict reversed on appeal, pleaded guilty yesterday to avoid a retrial. Allah McCall, 22, admitted he shot Eddie Newson, 17, in Far Rockaway on Aug. 20, 1999, and was sentenced on the spot to 10 years in prison. McCall was initially convicted of murder in November 2001 and sentenced to 20 years to life. An appeals court later overturned the conviction, citing what it said was prosecutor Claude Stuart’s intentional exclusion of Jamaican jurors. According to defense lawyer Murray Singer, Stuart excluded those jurors because he believed they hailed from a violent society. Stuart resigned in 2002, after withholding a prosecution memo in another murder case. Singer said his client, “is happy that the matter has been resolved and that he can continue serving his sentence.” KILLER PLEADS GUILTY TO ‘99 SLAY, NY Post.
This shows a troubling pattern in the understanding, or lack thereof, of the “Batson” challenge in jury selection.