Morgan v. City of Chicago

In prosecution on section 1983 claim alleging that defendants-police officials subjected plaintiff to false arrest on drug possession charge and used excessive force in effectuating his arrest, Dist. Ct. did not err in overruling plaintiff’s objection to defendants’ use of two preemptory challenges on African-American jurors. Jury included two African-American jurors, and defendants’ counsel provided race-neutral explanation that said jurors were excused because they lived near or had contacts with area where plaintiff had been arrested. Moreover, Dist. Ct. did not err in finding that said explanation was genuine, even though: (1) Dist. Ct. had failed to sua sponte hold separate evidentiary hearing on issue of defendants’ counsel’s credibility, since plaintiff did not take advantage of opportunity to present additional evidence to dispute counsel’s explanation; and (2) Dist. Ct. did not provide detailed rationale for finding that explanation for strikes was genuine until plaintiff had filed post-trial motion. Ct. further rejected plaintiff’s claim that familiarity with location of his arrest had sufficient racially discriminatory impact to support any finding of purposeful discrimination and further found that plaintiff failed to show that rationale for use of instant strikes was not equally applied to non-African-Americans jurors.