Will Iowa make it harder to strike minority jurors from jury pools?

The Iowa Supreme Court has rejected a former special education associate's appeal accusing West Des Moines Community Schools of racial discrimination — but it could consider new rules next year that would make such appeals easier in the future.

Davina Valdez worked for the district from 2015 to 2019, primarily supporting a single special education student. In her 2019 lawsuit, she alleged that after the primary teacher in the classroom left before the end of the 2018-19 school year, the school named two other teachers to oversee the class through the end of the year.

Valdez, who is Black, alleged that one of the new teachers, Desira Johnson, was harassing and intimidating her, interfering with her student's needs, and at one point used the N-word in a conversation with her and another biracial employee.

At trial, the judge ruled that Johnson was not liable, as she was not acting as Valdez's supervisor. The jury then ruled for the school district and against Valdez on her remaining claims.

On Friday, in its final decision of the 2022-23 term, the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously denied Valdez's appeal, rejecting arguments that the district wrongly removed a Black juror from the trial.

"While we are disappointed in the outcome of this court’s opinion, we are committed to trying to make sure the workplace and the justice system treat all people fairly regardless of race," Valdez's attorney, Megan Flynn, said in a statement. "This opinion is another opinion that advances the discussion and encourages further action, whether through the courts or the legislature."

West Des Moines Community Schools representatives did not return messages Friday seeking comment.

Attorney said juror struck for lack of 'rapport'

According to court filings, when the case went to trial, the only Black member of the jury pool was removed by the district's attorney with one of her discretionary strikes.

The U.S. Supreme Court has held that jurors cannot be removed solely for their race. If a party challenges the other side's decision to strike a juror, the striking side must provide a race-neutral justification, with the challenging side then having the burden to prove the offered justification is invalid or pretextual.

In Valdez's case, the district's attorney offered three reasons to strike the Black juror, and the district judge accepted two of them: that the attorney "did not have a good rapport" with him during jury selection, and the juror made a comment suggesting he thought "something had happened" to give merit to Valdez's claim.

From April: West Des Moines district settles lawsuit alleging student permanently injured in gym class

Justice Dana Oxley, writing Friday's decision, granted that subjective complaints about "rapport" can be evidence of even unconscious bias against minority jurors. But she gave credence to the district judge, who observed in ruling on the objection that the juror appeared to be "reticent" in answering questions and agreed that the juror's answer about "something happened" could reasonably raise concerns for an opposing counsel.

Oxley noted, however, that the district's third justification appeared pretextual. The school's attorney said she struck the Black juror because he "had management experience but no experience with workplace complaints against him." That justification would apply to at least five other members of the jury pool, Oxley wrote, none of whom drew objections from the district.

Still, Oxley wrote, the evidence was not enough to show the juror's race was the primary factor driving the district's decision to remove him from the pool.

Will Iowa raise the bar for jury strikes?

Batson v. Kentucky, the U.S. Supreme Court case that first permitted challenges to the removal of minority jurors, has been criticized by legal scholars as setting too easy a standard for attorneys to justify the removal of jurors on pretextual grounds, as Oxley acknowledged in her opinion.

In her appeal, Valdez asked the court to adopt two reforms under the Iowa Constitution: adopting a higher standard for strikes of "last minority" jurors (a proposal previously championed by since-retired Justice Brent Appel), and requiring courts to view evidence on such challenges "in the light most favorable to the party challenging the strike."

Oxley writes that such changes are already in place in several states but rarely adopted by litigation.

Instead, it has usually been state legislators, or state courts acting in their rulemaking capacities, that have gone "beyond Batson." She specifically cited the Washington Supreme Court, which declined to impose such reforms in a 2013 case but enacted changes to the state's court rules to make it harder to strike minority jurors.

"The foregoing measures have largely been taken by statute or rule. For present purposes, we hold that the two 'beyond Batson' approaches Valdez seeks in this case are not mandated by the Iowa Constitution," Oxley wrote.

That isn't necessarily the end of the issue, though.

According to Iowa Judicial Branch spokesman Steve Davis, the court has approved the creation of a task force to consider possible rule changes for strikes against minority jurors. The task force has not yet been formed, but is expected to begin work during the court's next term, Davis said.

William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com, 715-573-8166 or on Twitter at @DMRMorris.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa Supreme Court denies West Des Moines racial discrimination appeal