Dеon Evans was tried and convicted of violating the Georgia Controlled Substances Aсt. He appeals the judgment of conviction following the denial of his motion for new trial.
1. Evans, who is black, contends the trial court erred in seating juror number seven, a white fеmale, after his attorney articulated a reasonable race-neutral rеason for striking the juror. We agree with Evans and reverse.
The record shows that Evans’s attоrney used a peremptory strike for juror number seven and the State made a “reverse
Batson”
1
(Batson v. Kentucky,
In
Gamble v. State,
Thus, we examine the context in which the defense attorney attempted to strike juror number seven. The record shows that the аttorney had already seated three black jurors and struck two white jurors. However, thе court ruled and the State concedes that the *590 articulated reasons for striking thе two white jurors — both jurors had been on the opposite side of the attorney in prior litigation — were race-neutral. In addition, immediately prior to striking juror number seven, the defense seated juror number six, a white female.
Evans’s attorney explained that he struck juror number seven in order “to get to people at the bottom of the list that I think will be good jurors. And that causes me to exercise strikes early on. . . . It has nothing to do with the woman’s race. I just sat a woman of approximately the same age and preсisely the same race. . . .” In addition, the court later noted the defense had indicаted that the two jurors further down on the list whom it wanted to reach were a white femalе and a black male.
Evans’s attorney further stated that he might not have been forced to strike the juror if the court had opted to pass the jury list back and forth between thе parties as is done in civil trials rather than requiring action on the jurors in the sequencе they appeared on the jury list. That way, the parties could exercise their strikеs randomly rather than being forced to exercise strikes in the order the names appeared on the list. It is not necessary to address the order in which jurors in criminal cases must be considered and struck inasmuch as it appears that Evans’s reason for striking juror number seven was sufficient and that the trial court erred in ruling otherwise.
As we scrutinize the sufficiency of the reason offered by the attorney and the context in which the strike oсcurred, “we are [also] mind-r ful that the explanation need not rise to the level justifying exercise of a challenge for cause, but it must be neutral, related to the case to be tried, and a clear and reasonably specific explanation of [the attorney’s] legitimate reasons for exercising the challenges.” (Citations аnd punctuation omitted.) Covin, supra at 4.
We find that defense counsel’s explanation met all threе of these criteria, but more importantly, viewed in context, the explanation wаs in fact race-neutral: The attorney had unquestionably race-neutral reasons for his prior strikes (see Gamble, supra), had just seated a white juror and was attempting to reach both a black and a white juror at the bottom of the list. Thus, we find that in the context of аpplication, the attorney’s proffered desire to get to other jurors was reasonable and race-neutral. Accordingly, under these particular facts, it was error for the trial court to seat juror number seven.
2. Given our holding in Division 1, we need not address Evans’s remaining enumeration of error.
Judgment reversed.
Notes
In
State v. Mayweather,