Title: State Ex Rel. Gregg v. Maples

State: alabama

Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court

Document:

239 So. 2d 198 (1970)
STATE of Alabama ex rel. Warren Lowe GREGG
v.
James Herman MAPLES, Clayton Brock and A. C. Sharp, Jr., as Members of the Jury Commission of Madison County, Alabama, et al.
8 Div. 396.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
September 3, 1970.
Martinson, Manning & Martinson, Huntsville, for appellant.
Fred B. Simpson, Huntsville, for appellees.
LAWSON, Justice.
This is an appeal from a judgment of the Circuit Court of Madison County rendered on February 6, 1970, as amended by the trial court, ex mero motu, on February 12, 1970.
The pertinent provisions of the decree, as amended, read:
The "order" of September 23, 1969, was rendered in response to a motion filed by one Paul Allen Miller on August 21, 1969, in a criminal case, State of Alabama v. Paul Allen Miller, which was pending in the Circuit Court of Madison County. The said motion prayed for an order of the court directing the Jury Commission of Madison County to "organize a new jury roll and to empty and refill the jury box" on the grounds that the "present jury rolls do not contain a cross-section of citizens qualified to serve as jurors in Madison County, Alabama," and that "no fair and reasonably accurate method is used by said Commission to determine the qualifications of citizens of this County to serve as jurors," and that "all qualified citizens of Madison County do not have an equal opportunity to be chosen for the present roll of this County."
The District Attorney confessed the averments of said motion and consequently no evidence was adduced in support thereof.
*199 The "order" of September 23, 1969, which is alluded to in the amended judgment from which this appeal is taken, reads in part as follows:
ORDER
Judge David R. Archer, who rendered the order of September 23, 1969, apparently undertook to amend that order, ex mero motu, on December 16, 1969. The only changes effectuated in that part of the order of September 23, 1969, which we have set out above, by the so-called amended order of December 16, 1969, was to insert the word "primary" before the word "list" where it appears in line 2 of paragraph (1) and by substituting the word "should" for the word "shall" where that word appears for the second time in the second sentence of paragraph (1). We call attention to these changes solely for the sake of accuracy. The appellees do not place any importance on the changes, perhaps for the reason that Judge Archer's right to amend the order of September 23, 1969, ex mero motu, on December 16, 1969, is certainly questionable.
The so-called "Jury Refilling and Reorganization Plan," hereinafter referred to as the "Plan," contains many provisions in addition to those which we have set out above, but we see no reason to include them in this opinion.
On January 21, 1970, a petition was filed in the Circuit Court of Madison County styled State of Alabama ex rel. Warren Lowe Gregg v. James Herman Maples, Clayton Brock, and A. C. Sharp, Jr., as members of the Jury Commission of Madison County, Alabama, and against A. L. Smith, as Clerk of the Jury Commission of Madison County, which petition prayed in pertinent part as follows:
On the day the said petition for writ of mandamus was presented to him, Judge Archer issued a fiat to the clerk of the Circuit Court of Madison County directing her to issue an alternative writ of mandamus to each of the "respondents to the petition and be made returnable to me on the 29th day of January, 1970, at Chambers at 10:00 a. m. in the Courthouse at Huntsville, Alabama."
The said order or fiat contained the following language:
Pursuant to the fiat, an alternative writ of mandamus in approximately the language last quoted was issued by the clerk on January 21, 1970, returnable on January 20, 1970.
On January 29, 1970, the members of the Jury Commission and Pat Brookbank, successor to A. L. Smith as Clerk of the Jury Commission, filed their joint answer. The allegations of the answer were not traversed by the relator, and on February 5, 1970, the parties submitted the cause to Judge Archer for judgment upon the petition and the answer filed thereto.
On February 6, 1970, Judge Archer rendered a judgment vacating the alternative writ of mandamus theretofore issued, reinstating the order entered on September 23, 1969, in the Miller case, supra. On February 12, 1970, Judge Archer rendered the amended judgment which we have set out above, wherein the peremptory writ of mandamus prayed for by the relator was expressly denied.
The question on this appeal is whether the trial court erred in vacating the alternative writ of mandamus and in denying the peremptory writ of mandamus.
Under the "Plan" the name of no person can be placed on the jury roll in Madison *201 County unless the name of that person appears on the registration records or lists of that county as a registered voter. This limitation is a radical departure from the statutory system enacted by the legislature of this state, which system applies to Madison County, and is repugnant to so many aspects of that system as to constitute a usurpation of the authority of the legislature.
The procedure for the selection of jurors in most of the counties of this state, including Madison, is controlled by general statutes which are set forth in the 1958 Recompiled Code of Alabama. All statutory references to the procedure for the selection of jurors in Alabama as set forth in this opinion will be to Title 30, 1958 Recompiled Code, supra, and the 1969 Cumulative Pocket Part to Vol. 8 of that Code.
Each county in Alabama has a jury commission composed of three members appointed by the Governor, with some exceptions provided by local acts or general acts with local application. Madison County, as indicated above, is not within any such exception.
The jury commissioners are required to "make in a well-bound book a roll containing the name of every citizen living in the county who possesses the qualifications herein prescribed and who is not exempted by law from serving on juries." § 20, Title 30, as amended. It is provided in § 21, Title 30, as amended, in part as follows: "The jury commission shall place on the jury roll and in the jury box the names of all citizens of the county who are generally reputed to be honest and intelligent and are esteemed in the community for their integrity, good character and sound judgment; * * *." As a part of the procedural requirements, the names of persons on the jury roll must also be printed on separate cards, which are placed in the jury box. It is the duty of the clerk to see that the name of each person possessing the qualifications for serving as a juror and not exempted by law from jury duty "is placed on the jury roll and in the jury box." § 24, Title 30, 1958 Recompiled Code. The Alabama law further requires the jury commission and its clerk to scan the registration lists, the lists returned to the tax assessor, any city directory and telephone directories, and any and every other source of information, and to visit every precinct in the county at least once a year.  § 24, Title 30, 1958 Recompiled Code of Alabama.
Despite the provisions of § 24, Title 30, supra, the "Plan" says to the jury commission that it may only consider the names of the persons who appear on the registration lists or records of the county.
The purpose of §§ 18, 20 and 24 of Title 30 is "to protect litigants and to insure a fair trial by an impartial jury." And "substantial compliance with these requirements is necessary in order to safeguard the administration of justice." Inter-Ocean Cas. Co. v. Banks, 32 Ala.App. 225, 227, 23 So. 2d 874, 875.
Some of the opinions wherein the aforementioned statutes are construed were written in recent cases, in which the appellants complained of the systematic exclusion of Negroes from juries in Alabama. In Fikes v. State, 263 Ala. 89, 81 So. 2d 303, it was held that the evidence at a hearing on a motion to quash did not support a finding that Negroes were systematically omitted from the jury roll. This court in Fikes, supra, said that "[t]here is no legal reason for quashing an indictment or venire simply because the jury commission did not put the name of every qualified person on the roll or in the jury box, in the absence of fraud (or a denial of constitutional rights)." (263 Ala., 95, 81 So.2d 309) Bell v. Terry, 213 Ala. 160, 104 So. 336; Wimbush v. State, 237 Ala. 153, 186 So. 145.
*202 That statement of the law was recognized by two federal decisions in granting injunctive relief to Negroes, but the court went on to say that "the law does require that the jury commissioners do not place so few names in the jury box as not to obtain a full cross-section of the county." Mitchell v. Johnson, 250 F. Supp. 117 (N.D.Ala., 1966); White v. Crook, 251 F. Supp. 401 (M.D.Ala., 1966).
In the Mitchell case, supra, the court said that "the purpose of the Alabama statutes is to insure at least a reasonable approximation to the requirements that jury venires include all qualified persons, and, hence, represent a cross-section of the community, with no significant groups being excluded without justifiable reasons; therefore, the procedures outlined by the Alabama statutes can and do serve * * * as a standard by which the actions of the jury commissioners can and should be judged." 250 F.Supp. at p. 122. And that the "sole purpose of these requirements is to insure that the jury commissioners will have as complete a list as possible of names, compiled on an objective basis, from which to select qualified jurors." 250 F.Supp. at p. 123.
In Bokulich v. Jury Commission of Greene County, 298 F. Supp. 181 (N.D.Ala., 1968), the court summarized the present position of the law as to these statutes, stating:
The appellees argue that the "Plan" provides for substantial compliance with the statutes in that names gotten from the voter registration lists would provide an adequate cross-section of the county. They cite United States v. Greenberg, 200 F. Supp. 382 (S.D.N.Y., 1961), in support of this theory. While it is correct that the court in that case held a grand jury was properly impanelled even though the names comprising the panel were drawn from lists of persons registered to vote, the case is not in point here. In Greenberg, supra, the court was discussing the selection of a federal jury and was concerned solely with the federal procedure. The court in that case said as follows:
The opinion in Greenberg quotes from Padgett v. Buxton-Smith Mercantile Co., 283 F.2d 597, 598 (10 Cir., 1960), cert., denied, 365 U.S. 828, 81 S. Ct. 713, 5 L. Ed. 2d 705, as follows: "Neither statutory nor case-made law requires the use of any particular source of names so long as there is no systematic exclusion of the members of any race, creed, social or economic group." [1] In the present case, we are to some extent dealing with a discretionary matter, but with a system of selection which the legislature has specifically provided and with which the jury commission must substantially comply.
*203 Unregistered voters would seem, in the absence of statistics to the contrary, to comprise a substantial segment of the population of any area. And such a system of jury selection which omitted them would not substantially comply with the statutes in Alabama, nor would such a procedure insure the jury commission as complete a list as possible. Mitchell v. Johnson, supra.
Further, the appellees' reliance on the Fikes decision, supra, that a venire need not be quashed on the ground that the name of every qualified juror is not on the jury roll is without merit. That decision is qualified by the caveat, "in the absence of fraud." Fraud used in this sense has been construed as encompassing more than criminal wiles: "Fraud is a relative term, it includes all acts and omissions which involve a breach of legal duty injurious to others." Inter-Ocean Cas. Co. v. Banks, supra. And it has been held that "When it affirmatively appears that the names of a large number of citizens who possess the qualifications required by law of jurors, are intentionally omitted from the jury roll * * * that is a fraud in law that requires the quashing of a venire * * *. It is not the kind of a jury box contemplated by law. Our Statutes do not contemplate * * * any system or scheme of selecting other than the selection of names authorized by law * * *." 32 Ala.App. at p. 227, 23 So.2d at p. 875, citing Doss v. State, 220 Ala. 30, 123 So. 231.
In view of the foregoing, we hold that the trial court erred in vacating the alternative writ of mandamus and in denying the peremptory writ of mandamus.
The judgment of the trial court is reversed and the cause is remanded with directions that a judgment be rendered and entered in accordance with the views expressed in this opinion.
Reversed and remanded with directions.
LIVINGSTON, C. J., and MERRILL, HARWOOD and MADDOX, JJ., concur.
[1]  The selection of persons to serve on federal juries is now controlled by `"The Jury Selection and Service Act of 1968." 28 U.S.C., §§ 1861-1869. See excellent article by the Honorable Walter P. Gewin, United States Circuit Judge for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Mercer Law Review, Vols. 19-20, 1968-69.