Title: Commonwealth v. Doss

State: kentucky

Issuer: Kentucky Supreme Court

Document:

RENDERED: DECEMBER 15, 2016
TO BE PUBLISHED

Supreme Court of Kentucky

2015-SC-000018-CL

COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY APPELLEE
CERTIFICATION OF THE LAW
v. FOR JEFFERSON CIRCUIT COURT, DIVISION SIX

INDICTMENT NO. 13-CR-2070-003

JAMES DOSS APPELLANT
OPINION OF THE COURT BY JUSTICE VENTERS
CERTIFYING THE LAW
Appeliant, Commonwealth of Kentucky, requested certification of the law

pursuant to CR 76.97(10) which, in conjunction with Section 115 of the
Constitution of Kentucky, permits the Commonwealth to obtain appellate
review of a final order that is adverse to the Commonwealth. Appellee James

Doss, charged with theft, was acquitted by a jury at the conclusion of his trial

 

in the Jefferson Court.
‘The Commonwealth contends that the trial judge improperly discharged
the jury panel initially selected to try the case because of its racial composition,

and then proceeded with the trial only after empaneling a second, more racially

 

inclusive jury. Doss’s acquittal and the Double Jeopardy Clause of the state
and federal constitutions! prevents the Commonwealth from retrying the case

against Doss. But the Commonwealth contends that the issue presented is of

significant public importance to warrant review by this Court and we agree.
The principal question we address is this:

Does a trial judge have the discretion to dismiss a randomly
selected petit jury panel because it appears to be unrepresentative
of a fair cross section of the community, despite the fact that the
rules for jury selection were properly followed and no evidence
suggests that the jury pool from which the panel was drawn was
not a fair cross section of the community or that any significant
segment of the local population was systematically excluded from

‘the jury pool??
We also certify the question posed by the Commonwealth with respect to
restrictions placed by the trial judge on the questions that could be asked
during the voir dire examination of the second jury panel called in to try the
May a trial judge bar the parties during voir dire from examining or

challenging prospective jurors with respect to statements made by
the jurors during a previous voir dire examination?

‘The Commonwealth also requested certification of the law with respect to
whether the dismissal of the jury as occurred in this case offended any rights of

individual citizens who had been duly selected for jury service on this case.

1 U.S. Constitution, Amendment V: *No person shall... be subject for the same
‘offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb;

Kentucky Constitution §13: “No person shall, for the same offense, be twice put
in jeopardy of his life or limb, .. ..”

2'The Commonwealth phrased it question with multiple subparts. We have
restated the question to more clearly define the issue and to articulate more precisely
our certification of the law.

 
Our certification regarding the dismissal of the jury makes it unnecessary for

us to address this question and we decline to do so.

1. Factual and Procedural Background
James Doss appeared before Division Six of the Jefferson Circuit Court
for a trial by jury on a felony theft charge. After resolving a number of pre-trial
issues, the trial judge brought into the courtroom a panel of 41 prospective

jurors randomly selected from the larger pool of Jefferson County citizens

 

available that day for jury service in the various divisions of the Jefferson

trial would be chosen from that panel of

 

Circuit Court, The jurors for Do:
41 in accordance with the applicable rules for jury selection. RCr 9.30;
Administrative Procedures for the Court of Justice, Part Il, Section 10.

Doss is an African-American. When it became apparent that only one of
the 41 persons on the jury panel was African-American, Doss moved to dismiss
the entire panel on the grounds that it did not represent a fair cross section of
the community. He offered no statistical or demographic evidence to support
his argument, and he offered no evidence to show that the racial composition of
the panel resulted from anything other than a purely random selection process.
In short, Doss had nothing to demonstrate a systematic exclusion from jury
service of any segment of Jefferson County society. Ultimately, he conceded
that the procedures applicable to jury selection were properly followed,

Despite the absence of hard statistics, for purposes of this certification,

we readily accept the premise that a single African-American on a jury venire of

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41 individuals constitutes 2.4% of the panel, which substantially under-
represents the African-American community of Jefferson County, Kentucky.
‘The trial judge noted that a jury panel of this racial composition was highly
unusual, even unprecedented. He deferred ruling on Doss’s motion and
directed the parties to proceed with the voir dire examination.

‘When voir dire examination was completed, but before the peremptory
challenges were exercised, the judge resumed the earlier discussion of the jury
composition with the prosecutor and the defense counsel. Although obviously
troubled by the anomalous under-representation of African-Americans, the
judge found nothing to indicate the result was due to anything other than the
random selection required by our rules. The court denied Doss's motion to
‘strike the whole jury on account of its racial imbalance.

After the removal of jurors for cause and peremptory challenges, the
panel, which still included the lone African-American, had a surplus of four
Jurors. In accordance with proper jury selection protocol, the clerk of the court
randomly selected four jurors to be excused from the panel. The African-
‘American was one of the four jurors excused. Thus, no African-American was
‘seated on the petit jury selected for Doss's trial.?

‘At that point, Doss renewed his motion to dismiss the jury because of its
racial characteristics. The trial judge reiterated his concern about the racial

‘composition of the selected jury, but again noted that the applicable rules had

 

2 The record does not disclose the final racial or ethnic composition of the petit
jury initially selected for Doss's trial, except that none were African-American,

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been properly followed and that only random chance could account for the
‘anomaly. The judge again denied Doss’s motion, but Doss's attorney persisted,
arguing that the obvious racial imbalance was itself prima facie evidence of
systematic discrimination in the Jefferson County jury selection process that
should shift the burden of proving otherwise to the Commonwealth.

Ultimately, the trial court concluded that regardless of proper compliance
with the jury selection procedures, Doss was entitled to a petit jury that
included at least one African-American juror. Over the Commonwealth's
objection, the trial court dismissed the jury and rescheduled the trial for the
next morning with a new venire of prospective jurors.

‘The next day, a second panel of 41 prospective jurors was drawn from
the Jefferson County jury pool and assigned for duty in Division Six where
Doss's case was again slated for trial. This venire included four African-

Americans. Doss again moved to strike the entire panel as not being fairly

 

representative of the community. The court denied his motion and the jury
selection process began anew.

‘The voir dire examination of this second jury panel gives rise to a second
question presented by the Commonwealth for certification. The new venire
included a number of individuals who had been on the venire that was
discharged the previous day, including one who had been challenged for cause
and stricken from the panel. The Commonwealth perceived a need to inquire of
those individuals about their responses to voir dire questions asked the

previous day, especially the juror who had been removed from the panel for

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cause, The trial judge admonished counsel that the previous day’s voir dire
examination should be treated as if it never happened, and that none of the
jurors’ responses of the previous day could be mentioned or used for any
purpose. The Commonwealth objected

‘The case proceeded to trial and Doss was acquitted. The Commonwealth
moved for certification of law with respect to the questions set forth above.

IL, A trial judge does not have the discretion to dismiss a randomly
selected jury panel which, despite it unrepresentative appearance, was
not shown to have been drawn from a jury pool that failed to reflect a fai
cross section of the community, and where all other law applicable to the
selection of petit jury panels was properly followed.
Thirty years ago, in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), a case that

 

also originated in the Jefferson Circuit Court, the United States Supreme Court
acknowledged that the deliberate exclusion of African-Americans from jury
service was “a primary example of the evil the Fourteenth Amendment was
designed to cure."* The Court described more than a century of its “unceasing
efforts to eradicate racial discrimination in the procedures used to select the
venire from which individual jurors are drawn.” id. In Swain v. Alabama, 380
U.S. 202, 203-04 (1965), the Supreme Court recognized that a “State's
purposeful or deliberate denial to Negroes on account of race of participation as
jurors in the administration of justice violates the Equal Protection Clause.”

Batson reaffirmed that principle. 476 U.S. at 84.

4 Id. at 85 (citing Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303 (1880) (invalidating a
tate statute that provided only white men could serve as jurors),

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Batson reiterated Justice Frankfurter’s dissenting comment in Thiel v.
Southern Pac. Co., 328 U.S. 217, 227 (1946): “Since the color of a man’s skin is
unrelated to his fitness as a juror, negroes cannot be excluded from jury
service because they are negroes. Batson, 476 U.S. at 87. “Whether jury
service be deemed a right, a privilege, or a duty, the State may no more extend

it to some of its citizens and deny it to others on racial grounds than it may

 

invidiously discriminate in the offering and withholding of the elective

franchise. ... [The State] must hew to federal constitutional criteria in

 

ensuring that the selection of membership is free of racial bias.” Carter v. Jury
Commission of Greene County, 396 U.S. 320, 330 (1970) (internal citations
omitted).

“The right to a completely impartial jury is protected by Section Eleven of
the Kentucky Constitution as well as the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to
the U.S. Constitution.” Fugate v. Commonwealth, 993 S.W.2d 931, 939 (Ky.
1999) (citing Paenits v. Commonwealth, 820 8.W.2d 480, 481 (Ky. 1991)
(emphasis added). The right to an impartial jury, however, does not afford a
litigant the right to a jury that includes one or more members of his or her
‘ethnic or racial background, religious creed, gender, profession, or other
personal characteristic by which one is identified. The impossibility of
constructing a jury of 12 persons that “insure(s) representation of every
distinct voice in the community” is obvious and well recognized. Williams v.

Florida, 399 U.S. 78, 102 (1970). “The number of our races and nationalities
stands in the way of evolution of such a conception of due process or equal
protection.” Akins v. State of Texas, 325 U.S. 398, 403 (1945).

“Defendants under our criminal statutes are not entitled to demand
representatives of their racial inheritance upon juries before whom they are
tried.” Id, “Although a defendant has no right to a petit jury composed in
whole or in part of persons of {the defendant's} own race, he or she does have
the right to be tried by a jury whose members are selected by
nondiscriminatory criteria.” Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. 400, 404 (1991) (internal
quotes and citations omitted.) The Constitution does not require “petit juries

[that] mirror the community and reflect the various distinctive groups in the
population," Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, $38 (1975); instead the
Supreme Court “has unambiguously declared that the American concept of the
jury trial contemplates a jury drawn from a fair cross section of the community,”
id. at 527 (emphasis added).

Accordingly, Doss has no constitutional right to a petit jury that included
an African-American or even one that reflected the racial or ethnic makeup of
his community. However, he had a right to a petit jury drawn from a larger
pool of potential jurors that reflected a “fair cross section of the community.” It
is presumed that a jury “drawn from a fair cross section of the community" is
impartial. Holland v. Illinois, 493 U.S. 474, 480 (1990) (“A] fair cross section,
on the venire is a means of assuring... an impartial {jury|).” The burden is on
the party challenging the jury's impartiality to show otherwise. Johnson v.
Commonwealth, 292 S.W.3d 889, 894 (Ky. 2009) (citation omitted) (“{T]he

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burden is upon the Appellant to establish a prima facie violation of the fair

 

cross-section requirement.”
Experience has taught that random selection is the most effective means
of rooting out discrimination in the selection of citizens to fill the jury pool so
that it reflects a fair cross section of the community. To suppress the overt,
subtle, and even subconscious bias that can accompany human intervention,
wwe eliminated years ago the use of jury commissioners who had the duty to fill
the jury wheel with hand-picked names of “intelligent, sober, discreet and
impartial citizens, resident housekeepers in different portions of the county.”

now accomplished

 

KRS 29.070 (repealed). The selection of prospective jurors
by an indifferent and color-blind computer that produces a randomized list of
prospective jurors consisting of the county's roll of registered voters, persons
over the age of eighteen holding valid drivers’ licenses, and citizens of the state
who have filed resident individual tax returns. KRS 29A.040; see
‘Administrative Procedures for the Court of Justice, Part Il, Sections 3 and 5.

We recognize that other sources might be effectively and efficiently
tapped to broaden the scope of citizens available for jury selection. But neither
Doss nor the Amici Curiae that have participated in this appeal cite any
specific deficiency in Kentucky's current method of jury selection and they do
not suggest any better method of populating the jury pool to achieve a fair

cross section of the community.

 

5 Amicus Kentucky Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers focused its
‘argument on the misuse of peremptory strikes by prosecutors to remove African-

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Instead, they argue that we should vest trial judges with the discretion to
cure perceived deficiencies in the jury panel composition by discharging the
jury panel and replacing it with another, presumably drawn from the same jury
pool. Respectfully, we decline, We believe the temporary advantage of such a

policy is short-sighted and would be short-lived. Different judges will have

 

different ideas on what constitutes a fairly composed jury: ie., How many
jurors matching the race of each party should be seated to compose a fair jury?
What personal characteristic of the parties, such as religion, ethnicity, gender,
and national origin, should be selected to achieve a fairly composed jury?
Without standards by which to judge the “proper” composition of a jury, each
trial judge would be left to apply his or her own individual criteria, discharging
and replacing jury panels until a pleasing composition was attained. The
advantage of random selection would be lost; successive random draws until
the desired result is achieved is not random.

No one would reasonably argue that a judge could properly strike a
qualified individual juror from the petit jury panel simply to make room for a
different juror of another race or ethnicity. Outrage would be properly

‘American jurors. That concer is not applicable here because no peremptory strike
‘was used to remove an African-American juror.

6 Itis, ofcourse, undeniably true that race in America is not simply one of the
‘many factors that contributes to one's personal identity. The intractable problem of
‘eradicating racial discrimination from social and government institutions, including
Juries, has been a major legislative and judicial policy objective for the past 70 years.
Regardless of how one views the effect that effort has achieved, our history of insidious
discrimination based on racial differences sets it apart from other biases and
prejudices.

 

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expressed if.a trial judge said to a juror, “You are excused because you are
white and I need to get a black person on the jury;” or “You are excused
because we have enough African-Americans on this panel and I need to have
an Asian.” That is, however, exactly what happened here, although it was done
en masse rather than individually. The trial court discharged a group of
individually qualified jurors, properly and randomly selected, because none
was of the same race as Doss. Decades after Batson, we are not inclined to
reintroduce the purposeful selection of jurors on account of race.

RCr 9.30(2) mandates that “(the jury-selection process shall be
trative Procedures of

 

conducted in accordance with Part Two (2) of the A
the Court of Justice.” Part Two (2) of the Administrative Procedures of the
Court of Justice, Section 10 provides for the random selection of jurors serving
on petit juries. The selection or dismissal of individual jurors or a collective
panel of jurors on account of race is forbidden except when competent evidence
shows that the jurors were drawn from a panel that failed to represent a fair
‘cross section of the community.

In this instance there has been no such showing. We have consistently
held that trial judges enjoy wide discretion in matters relating to the dismissal
of jurors for cause, See Bowman ex rel. Bowman v. Perkins, 135 S.W.3d 399,

402 (Ky. 2004). However, a trial judge's decision that is unsupported by sound

u
legal principles is an abuse of discretion.” The decision to discharge the entire
Jury panel properly selected in accordance with applicable law was
‘unsupported by sound legal principles and was, thus, an abuse of discretion.
‘Accordingly, in response to the certified question we conclude that a trial

judge does not have the discretion to dismiss a randomly selected jury panel
which, despite it unrepresentative appearance, was not shown to have been
drawn from @ jury pool that failed to reflect a fair cross section of the
community, and all other law applicable to the selection of petit jury panels
was properly followed. The law is so certified.

IIL. May a trial judge bar the parties during voir dire from examining or

challenging prospective jurors with respect to statements made by the

{Jurors during a previous voir dire examination?

We begin our review of this question with recognition of the general rule

 

that a party in litigation has “no absolute right to question prospective jurors
[with respect to particular matters] because the extent of direct questioning by
‘counsel during voir dire is a matter within the discretion of the trial court.”
Grooms v. Commonwealth, 756 8.W.2d 131, 194 (Ky. 1988); accord St. Clair v.
Commonwealth, 451 8.W.34 597, 620 (Ky. 2014) (quotation and internal
citations omitted) (“This Court has long held that itis within the trial court's
discretion to limit the scope of voir dire.”). RCr 9.98 provides that the trial
court may permit counsel for the Commonwealth and the defendant to examine
7 Commonwealth v. English, 993 $.W.2d 941, 945 (Ky, 1999) ("The test for

abuse of discretion is whether the trial judge’s decision was arbitrary, unreasonable,
unfair, or unsupported by sound legal principles.”).

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the prospective jurors, or it may itself conduct the examination. “In the latter
event, the court shall permit [counsel] to supplement the examination by such
further inquiry as it deems proper.” RCr 9.38 (emphasis added),

Although there is no ‘affirmative right to ask certain specific questions of
prospective jurors,” St, Clair, 451 S.W.3d at 620 (citing Fields v.
Commonwealth, 274 S.W.3d 375, 393 (Ky. 2008) (quoting Thompson v.
Commonwealth, 147 8.W.3d 22, 53 (Ky. 2004))), itis universally accepted that
due process entitles parties in litigation to an unbiased decision, and in jury
trials, one means of assuring an unbiased decision is a “voir dire examination

. to enable the court and counsel to screen from the jury panel those
individuals whose verdict might be influenced by [extraneous matters.|"
Grooms, 756 S.W.2d at 134. It necessarily follows that trial counsel, by direct
‘examination of prospective jurors or by request to the trial court pursuant to
RCr 9.38, must have a means to inquire into matters that would expose known
or suspected biases that might reasonably lead to a challenge of the juror’s
qualification to serve.

Prior statements of prospective jurors relevant to their qualifications to
serve on the particular case is a proper subject of inquiry. It makes no

difference if the statement was made in the context of a prior voir dire

 

experience. In the case at hand, if the matter upon which a prospective jury
was examined during the first voir dire session was a proper subject of inquiry,
it would scem to be so also in the second round of voir dire questioning in the
very same case.

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We agree that it is within the trial judge’s discretion to impose particular
limits on the scope of inquiry into a juror’s previous statements when doing so
would prevent the likely dissemination of prejudicial information or would
unduly prolong the voir dire examination, or achieve some other efficiency
without jeopardizing the rights of the parties to a fair trial, But we conclude
further that a blanket rule during voir dire that prohibits reference to a
statement made by a prospective juror during a previous voir dire examination
is an overly-broad restriction upon the parties’ ability to fairly assess and
determine the qualifications of jurors. Consequently, the trial court's
imposition of that rule was an abuse of discretion.

‘Accordingly, in response to the certified question we conclude that a trial
judge may not generally prohibit the parties during voir dire from examining or
challenging a prospective juror with respect to statements made by the juror
during a previous voir dire examination, although the trial court may impose
reasonable limitations on the inquiry. ‘The law is so certified.

IV. Conclusion

‘The law is certified as set forth above.

All sitting. All concur.

COUNSEL FOR APPELLANT:

Andy Beshear
Attorney General of Kentucky

Dorislee J. Gilbert
Assistant Attorney General

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COUNSEL FOR APPELLEE JAMES DOSS:

Daniel T. Goyette
Cicely Jaracz Lambert

‘Sean Thomas Pharr

Office of the Louisville Metro Public Defender

COUNSEL FOR AMICUS CURIAE THE NATIONAL BAR (‘THE NBA”)
ASSOCIATION AND THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT
OF COLORED PEOPLE (THE NAACP"):

‘Stanford Obi
Henry G. Gyden

COUNSEL FOR AMICUS CURIAE KENTUCKY ASSOCIATION OF CRIMINAL
DEFENSE ATTORNEYS (KACDL):

Erwin W. Lewis
Larry David Simpson

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