State v. Hood, 273 N.C. App. 348 (Sept. 1, 2020)

In a first-degree felony murder case, the trial court did not err by denying the defendant’s motion to strike the initial jury panel and the Court of Appeals remanded the case to the trial court for a proper Batson hearing consistent with State v. Hobbs, 374 N.C. 345 (2020).  Before jury selection, the clerk provided the State and the defendant with a list of the first 12 prospective jurors to be called from the master jury list – 11 had surnames beginning with the letter “B” and the twelfth had a surname beginning with the letter “C.”  After defense counsel’s oral motion on the first day of voir dire to strike the first 12 prospective jurors based on concerns about whether they had been randomly selected in accordance with relevant statutes was denied, defense counsel made a motion in writing on the second day of voir dire to strike the jury panel for lack of randomness.  The trial court denied that written motion.  On the third day of voir dire, the trial court summarily denied the defendant’s Batson challenge to the State’s exercise of a peremptory strike against an African-American prospective juror.  With respect to the denial of the written motion to strike the jury panel, the Court of Appeals determined that even if the mandatory statutory procedure for calling jurors had been violated, the defendant did not show that any such violation was prejudicial because he did not strike any of the first 12 jurors for cause or with a peremptory challenge.  With respect to the Batson challenge, the court reviewed Hobbs, other precedent, and the proceedings in the trial court on its way to determining that the trial court erred by summarily denying the challenge without making specific findings of fact and conclusions of law.  The court remanded the case with instructions to the trial court to conduct a proper Batson hearing.