State of Minnesota, Respondent,

This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by
Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A22-0527

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Roosevelt Bartu Jr.,
Appellant.

Filed April 3, 2023
Affirmed
Ross, Judge

Hennepin County District Court
File No. 27-CR-20-17723

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Mary F. Moriarty, Hennepin County Attorney, Peter R. Marker , Assistant County
Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Peter H. Dahlquist, Assistant
Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Ross, Presiding Judge; Gaïtas, Judge; and Wheelock,
Judge.
NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
ROSS, Judge
Roosevelt Bartu faced trial on charges of first-degree aggravated robbery and third-
degree assault after he and his companions attacked a passerby in downtown Minneapolis
and stole his case of beer and groceries. The prosecutor removed a potential juror, who was
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a black woman, using a peremptory strike during jury selection. The district court allowed
the juror’s removal over Bartu’s allegation that the prosecutor was seeking to remove her
because of her race, deem ing the prosecutor’s proffered removal reason—the juror’s
statement expressing a religious-based reluctance to pass judgment on others—sufficiently
race-neutral. Challenging his robbery conviction, Bartu argues on appeal that allowing the
juror’s removal violated his constitutional rights. We hold that the district court did not
clearly err by finding that Bartu failed to establish that the prosecutor’s race-neutral reason
for removing the juror was a pretext for racial discrimination. And we conclude that the
assertions in Bartu’s supplemental brief are either unsupported by argument or premature.
We therefore affirm.
FACTS
The state alleged that a police officer monitoring downtown Minneapolis through
surveillance cameras saw a robbery in progress and that officers identified appellant
Roosevelt Bartu as one of the robbers. The surveillance videos (as evident in the recordings
and as explained by the victim at Bartu’s trial) depict a man walking with bags of groceries
and a case of beer and then being followed by Bartu, who nabs a can of beer. The man
confronts Bartu, who then opens the can and pours out its contents. The man walks away
from Bartu, but Bartu follows him again, overtakes him, and begins throwing punches at
him. Then others, who appear to be Bartu’s companions and acting in concert with him,
punch the man, strip off his coat and shirt, throw him to the sidewalk, and kick him in the
head. While some beat the man, Bartu and others carry away the case of beer and some of
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the groceries, leaving the man shirtless on the ground, dazed. One video shows the man
rise, unsteady, and he stumbles toward a wall.
The state charged Bartu with first-degree aggravated robbery and third-degree
assault. During voir dire for jury selection, the prosecutor asked the potential jurors
whether any of them had “a religious or cultural belief that makes it difficult to participate
in this process and render a verdict in this case.” One prospective juror (Juror 4) responded,
“In my religion we’re not supposed to judge anybody, we just say that God is the one who
judge[s] somebody. . . . I cannot sit and judge somebody.” Although Juror 4’s answer to a
different question represented that she would be comfortable serving as a juror, the
prosecutor asked follow-up questions. Answering whether her religion would allow her to
render a verdict, the woman said, “I’ll go and talk to my pastor and see what they say. Is
that allowed?”
The prosecutor unsuccessfully asked the district court to remove Juror 4, a black
woman, for cause. He then used one of the state’s peremptory strikes to remove her from
selection. Bartu, who is also black, accused the prosecutor of striking Juror 4 because of
her race, violating his constitutional right to equal protection under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986). The district court found that Bartu had asserted a prima facie case of
discrimination, observing that Juror 4 was the only black juror. But it also found that the
state had responded with a race -neutral, nonpretextual justification for the removal—
specifically, the juror’s religion-based reluctance to judge another person.
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The case proceeded to trial, and the jury found Bartu guilty of first-degree
aggravated robbery. The district court entered judgment of conviction and sentenced Bartu
to 41 months in prison.
Bartu appeals.
DECISION
Bartu argues that the district court failed to follow a proper Batson burden-shifting
procedure and that the court clearly erred when it decided that the state’s race-neutral
reason for removing Juror 4 was not a pretext for racial discrimination. Bartu also raises
five arguments in a supplemental brief. None of the arguments supports reversing.
Bartu argues that the district court failed to follow established procedure when it
rejected his Batson challenge. When addressing a Batson challenge, the distr ict court
should first consider whether the party opposing the other’s use of the peremptory strike
has met its burden of proving a prima facie case, then consider whether the party exercising
the strike has met its burden of producing a race-neutral explanation, and, if each party has
met its preliminary burden, consider finally whether the challenging party has met its
ultimate burden of proving that the purportedly race-neutral explanation is merely a pretext
for purposeful discrimination. State v. Green leaf, 591 N.W.2d 488, 500 (Minn. 1999).
Bartu accurately observes that the district court failed to specifically determine whether the
state provided a race-neutral reason for striking Juror 4 before it inquired into whether the
state’s rationale was a pretext for discrimination. Bartu does not contend that this alleged
procedural error supports reversal, and in fact he “concedes that the reason articulated by
the State is race-neutral.” Because Bartu does not ask for a remedy for the district court’s
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purported error in failing to complete the second burden-shifting step before moving to the
third and he concedes that the district court correctly decided the issue, we need not
consider the alleged error further.
The thrust of Bartu’s appeal is his contention that the district court improperly
concluded that he failed to prove that the prosecutor’s race-neutral explanation for
removing Juror 4 was merely a pretext for purposeful, racial discrimination. We will afford
the district court’s finding of the prosecutor’s intent considerable deference. Batson, 476
U.S. at 93. We therefore review the finding only for clear error. State v. Pendleton, 725
N.W.2d 717, 724 (Minn. 2007). Bartu identifies no circumstance persuasively suggesting
that the district court’s finding is clearly erroneous.
Bartu forwards four theories to support his contention that the prosecutor’s true
reason for removing Juror 4 was her race: the prosecutor questioned Juror 4 more than the
others; the prosecutor targeted Juror 4 with his religious question to potential jurors because
he noticed that she was wearing a headscarf ; the prosecutor misled Juror 4 to refer to her
religious beliefs by emphasizing the jury’s judgment role in his inquiry; and the prosecutor
mischaracterized Juror 4’s hesitation to judge another’s conduct. We observe that Bartu
made these same basic arguments, unsuccessfully, to the district court. The district court
believed the prosecutor in the face of Bartu’s proffered reasons why the district court might
deem the prosecutor not credible. Our deference to the district court’s credibility
assessment in its role as fact-finder leads us to reject Bartu’s contentions on appeal.
We add that Bartu’s rationale is also objectively unconvincing. That the prosecutor
questioned Juror 4 more than the others is not surprising, and indeed is expected, given that
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she was the only juror who cited religious grounds and said that she could not “sit and
judge somebody.” Her statement would lead any careful prosecutor to explore her implied
reluctance to determine whether the defendant was guilty. The district court did not find,
and we have no reason to speculate, that the prosecutor targeted Juror 4 with a religious
question because he noticed that she wore a headscarf. The question of whether any juror’s
religious or cultural belief would affect her ability to determine guilt is the sort of question
a lawyer commonly asks potential jurors to reveal either personal prejudices or moral
convictions that could reveal that a juror might be unsuitable to make unbiased factual
judgments or decide the ultimate question of guilt. For the same reason, we are not
persuaded by Bartu’s claim that the prosecutor misled Juror 4 to refer to her religious
beliefs by discussing the principle of judgment in voir dire.
Finally, we li kewise are unpersuaded by Bartu’s claim that the prosecutor
mischaracterized Juror 4’s hesitation to serve. Bartu argues that the state mischaracterized
Juror 4’s statement about her talking to her pastor to “see what they say” by falsely claiming
that the juror needed to consult her pastor to determine “if she ‘can do the job we are asking
her to do.’” Having reviewed the exchanges between the potential juror and both the district
court and counsel in context, we see no mischaracterization. Although Juror 4 said she
could render a verdict based on the evidence, she had previously said that her religion
prevented her from sitting in judgment. Given her potentially conflicting statements, the
prosecutor asked the seemingly confirmatory, follow-up question, “And your religion will
allow you to do that?” Her answer can fairly be characterized as expressing her need to
consult with her pastor specifically to determine whether her religion would allow her to
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find facts and render a verdict; in context, her response can be interpreted to mean that she
could not, without permission from her pastor, complete the fact-finding and verdict-
rendering job that her duty as a juror required of her. We see no mischaracterization.
We hold that the district court did not clearly err by concluding that the prosecutor’s
proffered reason for exercising the peremptory strike was not pretext for racial
discrimination.
Bartu’s supplemental brief suggests five additional issues, but none merit our
consideration. We generally do not address issues not sufficiently briefed with argument
or authority. State v. Andersen, 871 N.W.2d 910, 915 (Minn. 2015). Four of Bartu’s
assertions fit this category: that the investigator questioned him without reading the
Miranda warning; that the district court violated his right to a speedy trial; that the state
offered insufficient evidence to support his robbery conviction; and that the district court
erroneously allowed the charge “ without a corpus delici .” We will not address these
undeveloped assertions. Bartu also maintains that he was provided ineffective assistance
of counsel. Claims of ineffective assistance of counsel are generally best presented during
a postconviction petition for relief, allowing for a more developed record, rather than on
direct appeal. State v. Gustafson , 610 N.W.2d 314, 321 (Minn. 2000). We choose not to
address Bartu’s thinly briefed ineffective-assistance-of-counsel assertion on the merits,
affording Bartu the opportunity to raise and properly develop facts regarding that assertion
in a postconviction proceeding, if he chooses.
Affirmed.