Case Name: WILLIAMS v. THE STATE
Court: Supreme Court of Georgia
Jurisdiction: Georgia
Decision Date: 2010-06-28
Citations: 287 Ga. 735
Docket Number: S10A0598
Parties: WILLIAMS v. THE STATE.
Judges: All the Justices concur, except Melton, J., who dissents.
Reporter: Georgia Reports
Volume: 287
Pages: 735–741

Head Matter:
S10A0598.
WILLIAMS v. THE STATE.
(699 SE2d 25)

Opinion:
HUNSTEIN, Chief Justice.
The State is seeking death sentences against appellant Floyd Wayne Williams in connection with the deaths of two persons. This Court granted appellant's application for interim review to consider pre-trial whether the list from which appellant's traverse jury will be selected was composed in an unconstitutional manner.
The evidence presented in the trial court showed that the jury commission in Clayton County, pursuant to this Court's directive in the Unified Appeal Procedure, attempted to balance the percentages of various cognizable groups of persons on the traverse jury source list to match the percentages of those groups of persons reported in the most-recently-available Decennial Census. See U.A.E II (C) (6), (II) (E). As a result of this attempted forced balancing, there was no significant disparity between the percentage of African-American persons appearing on the traverse jury source list and the percentage of African-American persons in the population of Clayton County as measured by the 2000 Census. However, appellant presented evidence in the trial court suggesting that demographic changes in Clayton County since the 2000 Census have resulted in an increase in the current African-American population of 17.49 percentage points. Appellant argues that, because the source list from which his traverse jury will be selected has been balanced to match the 2000 Census rather than the current demographics of the county, that source list is unconstitutional.
In Ramirez v. State, 276 Ga. 158 (575 SE2d 462) (2003), this Court considered this same legal question under facts that were slightly less striking. In Ramirez, this Court was confronted by an under-representation of African-American persons on a grand jury source list of 11.9 percentage points. That under-representation had resulted, as in appellant's case, from demographic changes that had occurred since the last Decennial Census. We considered Ramirez's claim under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, under the fair cross-section guarantee of the Sixth Amendment, and under OCGA § 15-12-40, and we found no error. We now apply that same pattern of analysis to appellant's claim, and we again find no error.
1. To make a prima facie claim directly under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, appellant
was required to demonstrate that African-American persons were a recognizable, distinct class of persons, that they were under-represented over a significant period of time or under other circumstances which raised an inference of discrimination, and that the selection procedure employed was susceptible of abuse or was not racially neutral such that any presumption of discrimination raised by the statistics was supported. [Cits.]
Ramirez v. State, supra, 276 Ga. at 159 (1) (b). We have noted that the Decennial Census is the only "comprehensive county-wide head count" available to jury commissions and that jury commissions throughout the State of Georgia need "a valid population benchmark" to guide them in ensuring adequate representation of various groups of persons. Smith v. State, 275 Ga. 715, 719 (3) (571 SE2d 740) (2002). Accordingly, this Court, through the Unified Appeal Procedure, has continued to mandate the statewide use of this comprehensive source of data as an objective, readily-implemented test of whether cognizable groups are adequately represented on jury source lists. Because use of the Decennial Census as a benchmark has been adopted by this Court for the very purpose of promoting adequate representation of cognizable groups and because the demographic changes at issue in appellant's case "were obviously beyond the control of the county's jury commissioners," Ramirez v. State, supra at 161 (1) (b), we conclude that appellant has failed to show that the jury selection procedure in his case "was susceptible of abuse or was not racially neutral." Id. Accordingly, we conclude that appellant cannot make a prima facie claim of intentional discrimination under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Our judgment in this regard is not affected by the suggestion by the dissent that the statewide reliance on the Decennial Census mandated by this Court is somehow discriminatory because in this case that reliance has, as we assume here, resulted in under-representation. First, we note that the very purpose of this Court's mandated reliance on the Decennial Census is to remove even the possibility of discriminatory actions by individual decision-makers throughout Georgia. Second, we find it informative that the case upon which the dissent relies, Castaneda v. Partida, 430 U. S. 482 (97 SC 1272, 51 LE2d 498) (1977), itself invokes the Decennial Census as an objective and reliable benchmark.
2. In addition to a direct application of the Fourteenth Amendment to jury composition claims, this Court has also assumed that the fair cross-section guarantee of the Sixth Amendment applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. See Ramirez v. State, supra, 276 Ga. at 161 (1) (c). This Court has further held that a fair cross-section is also guaranteed by OCGA § 15-12-40 under standards "comparable if not identical" to Sixth Amendment standards. Id. To make a prima facie claim of a fair cross-section violation, a defendant must show
(1) that the group alleged to be excluded is a "distinctive" group in the community; (2) that the representation of this group [on the jury source list] is not fair and reasonable in relation to the number of such persons in the community; and (3) that this under-representation is due to systematic exclusion of the group in the jury selection process. [Cits.]
Morrow v. State, 272 Ga. 691, 692 (1) (532 SE2d 78) (2000). A fair cross-section claim is "almost identical" to a claim raised directly under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, "with the one prominent exception being that the claimant need not demonstrate any intent to under-represent a cognizable group. [Cit.]" (Emphasis in original.) Ramirez v. State, supra, 276 Ga. at 161-162 (1) (c). However,
a prima facie showing of a fair cross-section violation can be rebutted if the State can demonstrate that "attainment of a fair cross section [is] incompatible with a significant state interest." [Cit.]
Id. at 162 (1) (c).
In Ramirez v. State, supra, 276 Ga. at 162 (1) (c), we concluded that obtaining comprehensiveness and objectivity through the use of the Decennial Census was a "sufficiently significant state interest" to rebut an otherwise-valid prima facie fair cross-section claim based on an under-representation of African-American persons by 11.9 percentage points. See Morrow v. State, supra, 272 Ga. at 692-693 (1). In appellant's case, all relevant factors remain the same as they were in Ramirez except that African-American persons in appellant's case were, as we assume here, under-represented by 17.49 percentage points. As we noted above, the Unified Appeal Procedure provides a statewide procedure for creating and evaluating jury source lists, and that method was designed by this Court to promote adequate representation of cognizable groups through the use of a comprehensive and objective standard, the same standard that is invoked with unqualified confidence in the case relied upon by the dissent. See Castaneda v. Partida, supra, 430 U. S. 482. Although, in some instances, that procedure may create temporary, self-rectifying anomalies as Decennial Census reports grow old, we conclude that the ill done by those temporary anomalies is outweighed by the other benefits of the procedure. Based upon our careful consideration of the issue, we hold that a continued adherence to the requirements of the Unified Appeal Procedure regarding the balancing of cognizable groups to match the most-recent Decennial Census is justified by a sufficiently-significant state interest. Therefore, we conclude that appellant's prima facie showing of a fair cross-section violation has been rebutted.
Judgment affirmed.
All the Justices concur, except Melton, J., who dissents.
Rule (C) (6) of the Unified Appeal Procedure requires the trial court to review the traverse jury list "to determine whether all of the cognizable groups in that county are fairly represented." See id. at (a) (setting forth the method of establishing the existence of a "cognizable group"). The trial court is then required to compare the percentages of each cognizable group in the county, according to the most recent official Decennial Census figures, with the percentages represented on the traverse jury list. Significant under-representation of any such group on the traverse jury list should be corrected prior to trial. Id. at (b). Rule II (E) of the Unified Appeal Procedure sets forth the forms for the jury certificates required by Rule II (B) (6) to demonstrate that there is no significant under-representation, i.e., that the difference in the percentages compared is less than five percentage points.