Case Title: State v. Lawrence

Citation: 351 So. 2d 493

Docket Number: 

State: louisiana

Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

Date: 1977-10-10T00:00:00Z

Document:
351 So. 2d 493 (1977) STATE of Louisiana v. David Hill LAWRENCE. No. 59646. Supreme Court of Louisiana. October 10, 1977. Rehearing Denied November 11, 1977. *494 Henry H. Lemoine, Jr., Wilbert J. Saucier, Jr., Pineville, for defendant-relator. William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., William C. Pegues, III, Dist. Atty., William E. Tilley, First Asst. Dist. Atty., Edwin L. Cabra, Asst. Dist. Atty., for plaintiff-respondent. DIXON, Justice. Defendant, indicted by the Vernon Parish Grand Jury for second degree murder, filed a motion to quash the indictment attacking the procedure used in selecting the grand jury. The trial court, after hearing, denied the motion. We granted supervisory writs to review the correctness of the trial court's ruling. State v. Lawrence, 345 So. 2d 54 (La.1977). Testimony from the trial of the motion to quash indicates that the Vernon Parish jury venire is compiled in the following manner. The registrar of voters forwards a list of registered voters to the chairman of the jury commission. This list is supplemented periodically with the names of new registrants. The names on the list are transferred to index cards which are placed in a rotating drum. From this drum cards are drawn and questionnaires sent to each individual. The questionnaires are designed to determine the qualifications of the prospective juror and whether he desires to exercise any exemption available to him. After screening the questionnaires, the jury commission places the names of those remaining in a "hold box" from which the venire is selected. Assignment of Error No. 1 Defendant asserts that the trial court erred in refusing to quash the indictment on grounds that the jury commission excluded persons they knew to fall within an exempted class without affording the prospective juror the opportunity to waive the exemption. This court, pursuant to the authority granted by La.Const. art. V, § 33(B), adopted Supreme Court Rule 25, establishing groups of persons exempt from jury service. This rule provides: Defendant argues that the procedure employed by the Vernon Parish Jury Commission in dealing with persons who fall within an exempted class is identical to that held invalid in State v. Procell, 332 So. 2d 814 (La.1976). In Procell we held that the Sabine Parish Jury Commission acted in contravention of Rule 25 and its constitutional underpinnings when it excluded persons who were members of exempted classes without affording them the opportunity to waive the exemption. In the present case, the testimony of the four jury commissioners who appeared at the hearing on the motion to quash is in conflict. Commissioners G. W. Bass and F. E. Hernandez testified that prospective jurors were not excluded unless they indicated on the questionnaire that they chose to exercise their exemption. Commissioner N. B. Mayo, on the other hand, stated that "all lawyers, or judges, or what have you," are excluded from the venire. Commissioner W. C. Turner, when asked if the commission did all the exempting, stated, "Yes sir. They are automatically exempt, thoughlawyers and school bus driversthey automatically exempt." Supreme Court Rule 26, § 2(a) provides: Thus, if the testimony of Commissioners Bass and Hernandez is accepted as true, the practice of excluding from the venire those prospective jurors who chose to exercise their exemption would not be improper. (See State v. Reid, 340 So. 2d 551 (La.1977). Being cognizant of the limitations upon this court's scope of review imposed by Art. 5, § 5(C) of the La.Const. and of the trial judge's better capacity to evaluate the demeanor of the witnesses, we are not prepared to hold that, as a matter of law, the trial court erred in denying the motion to quash on this ground. The assignment is without merit. Assignments of Error Nos. 2 and 3 Defendant contends that the Vernon Parish Jury Commission practice of selecting the venire exclusively from the voter registration rolls systematically and arbitrarily excluded a substantial portion of the parish population, i. e. military personnel. In State v. Daigle, 344 So. 2d 1380, 1390 (La.1977), we expressed our concern over the propriety of using voter registration lists as the single source from which the jury venire is compiled. We held, however, that ". . . we cannot say that the use of voter lists without any showing in the record of any discrimination against a class of people establishes that the jury pool did not represent a fair cross-section of the community." Assuming military personnel to be a distinct class of people, the record fails to reflect their systematic or arbitrary exclusion. The registrar of voters of Vernon *496 Parish testified that the only prerequisites to being included on the voter registration rolls are thirty days residence in the parish and completion of the application form. While the occupation of the voter is not determinable from the application, the registrar testified that she specifically remembered uniformed military personnel returning applications. Thus the only class excluded from consideration by the jury commission are those persons qualified as prospective jurors who are not registered to vote, a class without any distinguishable, common characteristics. The defendant, while possessed of the right to be indicted by a grand jury chosen from a fair cross-section of the community, does not have the right to a grand jury reflecting with mathematical precision the composition of the community. State v. Anderson, 315 So. 2d 266 (La.1975); State v. Millsap, 258 La. 883, 248 So. 2d 324 (1971). Because the defendant failed to demonstrate the systematic exclusion of any identifiable segment of the community, this assignment is without merit. State v. Daigle, supra; State v. Taylor, 347 So. 2d 172 (La.1977); State v. Jones, 332 So. 2d 461 (La.1976). For the foregoing reasons, the ruling of the trial court denying defendant's motion to quash is affirmed and the case remanded for further proceedings. TATE and CALOGERO, JJ., were of the opinion that a rehearing should be granted.