Title: Jury Service Resource Center v. De Muniz
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: S52571
State: Oregon
Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court
Date: April 27, 2006

FILED: April 27, 2006
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON
JURY SERVICE RESOURCE CENTER;
DAVID SHANNON; and ROBERT PAUL LANGLEY, JR.,
Respondents on Review,
v.
PAUL J. DE MUNIZ;
KINGSLEY CLICK,
Office of the State Court Administrator,
Oregon Judicial Department;
PAUL LIPSCOMB;
JAMES MURCHISON,
Office of the Marion County Circuit Court Trial Court Administrator;
DALE KOCH;
DOUGLAS BRAY,
Office of the Multnomah County Circuit Court Trial Court Administrator;
ROBERT HUCKLEBERRY;
NANCY LAMVICK,
Office of the Lincoln County Trial Court Administrator;
BILL BRADBURY;
ROY TURNBAUGH;
and STATE OF OREGON,
Petitioners on Review.
(CC 03C-11907; CA A122978; SC S52571)
On review from the Court of Appeals.*
Argued and submitted January 10, 2006.
Erika L. Hadlock, Assistant Solicitor General, Salem, argued
the cause and filed the brief for petitioners on review.  With
her on the brief were Hardy Myers, Attorney General, and Mary H.
Williams, Solicitor General.
Rose Jade, Newport, argued the cause and filed the brief for
respondents on review.
Before Gillette, Presiding Justice, and Durham, Riggs,
Balmer and Kistler, Justices.**
GILLETTE, J.
The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed.  The
judgment of the circuit court is affirmed.
*Appeal from Marion County Circuit Court, Charles E. Luukinen, Judge. 199 Or App 106, 110 P3d 594 (2005).
**De Muniz, C.J., and Carson, J., did not participate in the
consideration or decision of this case.
GILLETTE, J.
This matter requires us to determine the extent to
which the data compiled and used by various public entities and
officers in the process of selecting trial juries may be obtained
by a member of the public.  Plaintiffs, as members of the
public, (1) initially sought to gain access to that information
(hereinafter collectively referred to as "jury pool records") by
requesting it from the Oregon Judicial Department, which uses the
data to compile the lists from which trial juries are chosen. 
When their requests were unsuccessful, plaintiffs filed the
present case in circuit court.  The circuit court granted summary
judgment to defendants and dismissed the complaint.  The Court of
Appeals reversed.  Jury Service Resource Center v. Carson, 199 Or
App 106, 110 P3d 594 (2005).  We allowed defendants' petition for
review and now reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals and
affirm the judgment of the circuit court.
The Court of Appeals set out the facts as follows:
"Plaintiffs are Jury Services Resource Center (JSRC), a
nonprofit organization interested in auditing the
Lincoln County Circuit Court's jury pool selection
process; Shannon, a citizen interested in scholarly
research into the state's jury pool selection process
and a potential juror in Multnomah County; and Langley,
a man who has been convicted of aggravated murder and
was awaiting a retrial of the penalty phase in that
case in Marion County.  Defendants are the State of
Oregon and various state officials in the judicial and
executive branches.
"The dispute in this case centers on jury pool
records consisting of 'source lists,' 'master lists,'
and 'term lists.'  'Source lists' are lists provided to
the State Court Administrator by county election
officials and by Department of Transportation
officials, as well as 'any other sources approved by
the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court that will
furnish a fair cross section of the citizens of the
county.'  ORS 10.215(1).  'Master lists' are 'names
selected at random from the source lists' at the
direction of the State Court Administrator.  Id.  The
master lists contain not only the names of prospective
jurors but also their addresses.  ORS 10.215(4).  'Term
lists' or 'term jury lists' are names and addresses
'selected at random from the master jury list * * * at
the direction of the presiding judge for the judicial
district or clerk of court' using a method prescribed
by the presiding judge of each judicial district.  ORS
10.205(2); ORS 10.225(1).  Because term lists are
chosen before a term begins, the composition of any
term list is always complete before the beginning of a
trial at which a jury chosen from the term list might
sit.  ORS 10.225(1).
"JSRC and Langley requested that court officials
from, respectively, Lincoln County and Marion County
disclose to them the contents of source lists, master
lists, and term lists[, asserting, inter alia, that the
lists were public records.]  When the county judicial
officials denied plaintiffs' requests, [plaintiffs]
appealed to the Attorney General.  See ORS 192.450
(Attorney General reviews denial of public record
requests).  He, too, denied the petitions, explaining
that the requested records were exempt from disclosure
under the [Public Records Law].  JSRC and Langley then
consolidated their various claims and sought judicial
review under ORS 192.490 in Marion County Circuit
Court.  Shannon, who had never filed a request for any
documents, was joined as a plaintiff; his claim was for
declaratory judgment under ORS 28.010.  Instead of
responding to plaintiffs' complaint with an answer,
defendants moved for summary judgment.  See ORCP 47 B
(party against whom a claim is brought may move for
summary judgment 'at any time').  Concluding that
defendant's denials did not violate the [Public Records
Law] or any constitutional provisions raised by
plaintiffs, the trial court granted defendants' motion
for summary judgment, rejected a subsequent 'motion for
reconsideration,' and entered judgment for defendants."
Jury Service, 199 Or App at 109-110 (footnote omitted).  As
noted, plaintiffs appealed the adverse judgment to the Court of
Appeals.
In its opinion, the Court of Appeals rejected
plaintiffs' statutory arguments under the Oregon Public Records
Law, ORS 192.410 to ORS 192.505, and their arguments under the
Oregon Constitution, including article I, section 8 (free
speech), section 10 (open courts), and section 20 (equal
privileges and immunities).  Jury Service, 199 Or App at 112-16. 
However, the Court of Appeals agreed with plaintiffs' argument
that they were entitled to access to jury pool records under the
First Amendment to the United States Constitution. (2)  Using a
test of "experience and logic" that the United States Supreme
Court has announced as the standard in disputes involving the
openness of judicial proceedings, the Court of Appeals concluded
that all stages of the jury selection process presumptively are
open, including the collection of names for preliminary lists
such as the jury pool records in this matter.  Jury Service, 199
Or App at 120-23.  
Based on a brief historical survey, the Court of
Appeals concluded that jury selection traditionally has been an
open process.  The court noted that, at common law, the sheriff
wrote names of qualified landowners on a sheet of paper and
summoned the listed men to appear at trial.  That process, the
court declared, was "conducted in public."  Id. at 121.  The
court also recited some evidence suggesting that, in the past,
jury lists were available to the public in Oregon.  Id. at 121-22.  In terms of whether public access plays a significant role
in the process at hand, the Court of Appeals dismissed the idea
that the process by which jury lists are created could be
separated analytically from the trial itself.  The issue, the
Court of Appeals stressed, involved both fairness in fact in the
jury selection process and also the appearance of fairness.  Id.
at 122.  
Based on that reasoning, the Court of Appeals concluded
that the jury pool records should be presumed to be public and,
the court went on to state, "[u]nder a system such as Oregon's,
in which the particular jury ultimately empaneled in any given
trial is drawn randomly from a pool that is itself selected
before a jury term, adequate protection of the public's right (as
well as the defendant's and potential jurors' rights) must begin
at the source of the process itself, at the aptly named 'source
lists.'"  Id. at 122-23.  The Court of Appeals further opined,
"Opening voir dire does not alone suffice to guarantee that a
jury is untainted, because taint at the source could flow forward
at each subsequent step.  Thus, to protect the values guaranteed
by the First Amendment right of access to the jury selection
process, that process must be open from the first step."  Id. at
123.  Notwithstanding that conclusion, however, the court left
the door open for defendants to deny plaintiffs access to the
records that they seek, at least in cases in which there is a
showing that denying public access serves a higher interest and
the restriction, if any, is narrow in scope.  Id.  We allowed
defendants' petition for review.
We begin our own analysis by stating that, plaintiffs'
arguments to the contrary notwithstanding, the Court of Appeals
did not err in rejecting plaintiffs' arguments respecting the
Public Records Law and Article I, sections 8, 10, and 20 of the
Oregon Constitution.  We agree with the fundamentals of the
analysis that that court employed in rejecting those claims, and
see no purpose to be served by paraphrasing the analysis here. 
We therefore confine our discussion to the proposition that the
Court of Appeals accepted, namely, plaintiffs' contention that
the First Amendment to the United States Constitution requires
defendants to give plaintiffs full access to jury pool records,
including source lists, master lists, and jury term lists.
In a line of cases issued over the past quarter
century, the United States Supreme Court has established that the
First Amendment encompasses a public right to observe the
workings of at least some parts of the administration of justice,
particularly criminal trials.  Consequently, trials must be
conducted openly with full access to the public.  "The right of
access to places traditionally open to the public, as criminal
trials have long been, may be seen as assured by the amalgam of
the First Amendment guarantees of speech and press; and their
affinity to the right of assembly is not without relevance." 
Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 448 US 555, 577, 100 S Ct
2814, 65 L Ed 2d 973 (1980) (plurality opinion).  The First
Amendment ensures access to criminal trials because of a "common
understanding that 'a major purpose of that Amendment was to
protect the free discussion of governmental affairs.'"  Globe
Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court, 457 US 596, 604, 102 S Ct 2613,
73 L Ed 2d 248 (1982), quoting Mills v. Alabama, 384 US 214, 218,
86 S Ct 1434, 16 L Ed 2d 484 (1966).  "Thus to the extent that
the First Amendment embraces a right of access to criminal
trials, it is to ensure that this constitutionally protected
'discussion of governmental affairs' is an informed one."  Id. at
604-05.  The administration of justice, and criminal trial
proceedings in particular, the Supreme Court has emphasized,
entail a significant governmental function that must remain open
to public scrutiny:
"[T]he right of access to criminal trials plays a
particularly significant role in the functioning of the
judicial process and the government as a whole.  Public
scrutiny of a criminal trial enhances the quality and
safeguards the integrity of the factfinding process,
with benefits to both the defendant and to society as a
whole.  Moreover, public access to the criminal trial
fosters an appearance of fairness, thereby heightening
public respect for the judicial process.  And in the
broadest terms, public access to criminal trials
permits the public to participate in and serve as a
check upon the judicial process -- an essential
component in our structure of self-government.  In sum,
the institutional value of the open criminal trial is
recognized in both logic and experience."
Id. at 606 (footnotes omitted).
Subsequent cases, such as Press-Enterprise Co. v.
Superior Court, 464 US 501, 104 S Ct 819, 78 L Ed 2d 629 (1984)
(Press-Enterprise I) and Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court,
478 US 1, 106 S Ct 2735, 92 L Ed 2d 1 (1986) (Press-Enterprise
II), have clarified the scope and applicability of the aforesaid
principles.  Like their predecessors, those cases involved
efforts by the news media, who claimed to represent the public,
to gain access to certain parts of trial court proceedings.  In
Press-Enterprise I, a California state trial court closed the
voir dire questioning of individual potential jurors to the
public during a murder trial.  Balancing the interest in
governmental transparency against the privacy of individual
jurors' discussions of sensitive personal experiences, the trial
court later ruled that the transcripts of voir dire also would
not be released to the public.  The case eventually made its way
to the United States Supreme Court, which vacated the trial
court's rulings.  The Court stated: "The process of juror
selection is itself a matter of importance, not simply to the
adversaries but to the criminal justice system."  464 US at 505. 
According to the Court, "historical evidence * * * reveals that,
since the development of trial by jury, the process of selection
of jurors has presumptively been a public process with exceptions
only for good cause shown."  Id.  In particular, the court
expressed its concern that the trial court had opened only three
days of a six-week voir dire process to the public and had
refused to release the transcript of the closed parts of the
proceeding, even though most of the information elicited during
voir dire was not sensitive in nature.  Id. at 513.
In Press-Enterprise II, a California state court
excluded the public from a preliminary hearing in a murder case. 
Under then-existing California law, preliminary hearings were
generally open to the public, but the magistrate could exclude
the public if exclusion were necessary to protect the defendant's
right to a fair and impartial trial.  In Press-Enterprise II, the
magistrate had granted the defendant's motion (which the state
had not opposed) to exclude the public, including the news media. 
On the appeal of the excluded media, the United States Supreme
Court again reversed.  The Court observed that its cases under
the First Amendment right of access to criminal proceedings had
emphasized the history of open criminal trials and the positive
role of that openness.  478 US at 8-9.  Referring back to its
discussion in earlier cases summarizing the history of openness
in criminal trials and jury selection, and its salutary effect on
both basic fairness and the appearance of fairness of the
criminal trial, the Court stated:
"These considerations of experience and logic are, of
course, related, for history and experience shape the
functioning of governmental processes.  If the
particular proceeding in question passes these tests of
experience and logic, a qualified First Amendment right
of public access attaches.  But even when a right of
access attaches, it is not absolute. * * * While open
criminal proceedings give assurances of fairness to
both the public and the accused, there are some limited
circumstances in which the right of the accused to a
fair trial might be undermined by publicity."
Press-Enterprise II, 478 US at 9 (citation omitted). 
Historically, the Court observed, preliminary hearings generally
have been held in open court where the public may attend.  Id. at
10.  In addition, the Court concluded that public access to
preliminary hearings "plays a particularly significant positive
role in the actual functioning of the process."  Id. at 11-12. 
The Court noted that Richmond Newspapers, Globe Newspaper, and 
Press-Enterprise I established that public access to criminal
trials and to jury selection at those trials "is essential to the
proper functioning of the criminal justice system," and that
"California preliminary hearings are sufficiently like a trial to
justify the same conclusion."  Id. at 12.  It followed that the
California court had erred in closing the preliminary hearing to
the public.  Id. at 15.
 Read together, Richmond Newspapers, Globe Newspaper, 
Press-Enterprise I, and Press-Enterprise II establish that
certain forms of judicial proceedings may be characterized as
"presumptively open," based on history and function.  The
historical record indicates whether the process has been one that
was open to the press and general public, and the particular
function of the process within the broader criminal trial context
determines whether public access plays a significant positive
role.  Press-Enterprise II, 478 US at 8-9.  If the test of
experience and logic is satisfied, then the particular process is
presumptively open.  Nevertheless, a party successfully may
overcome that presumption of openness by demonstrating an
overriding interest, i.e., by a showing that closure is essential
to preserve "higher values" and is "narrowly tailored to serve
that interest."  Id. at 9-10, 13-14.  
With the foregoing guidelines in mind, we turn to a
determination whether the principles to be derived from the Press
Enterprise cases and their predecessors dictate the conclusion
that the Court of Appeals reached in this case.
They do not.  Although historical evidence supports the
idea that trials, including the process of selecting particular
jurors at the threshold of trial, were open to the public, Press-Enterprise I, 464 US at 505-10, the process of selecting
potential jurors has never been open in that way.  At English
common law, the task of preliminarily selecting jurors was
delegated to the discretion of a trusted public official, namely,
the sheriff.  See Sir Matthew Hale, The History of the Common Law
of England 337 (6th ed 1820) (describing role of sheriff).  Under
that system, the sheriff enjoyed enormous discretion in deciding
how to select trial jurors.  See William L. Murfree, A Treatise
On the Law of Sheriffs and Ministerial Officers 177 (2d ed 1890)
("There seems to have been no limitation on [the sheriff's]
choice.").  
In the United States, however, legislatures in the
nineteenth century created statutory procedural standards for
identifying potential jurors that were less discretionary. 
Generally speaking, 
"[t]he statutes usually specif[ied] the number [of
jurors] to be annually selected in each county, which
selection is made by town authorities, county courts,
county commissioners, or other officers, and the list
so prepared is transmitted to the clerk of the county
or circuit court, where it is filed, and the names
copied upon slips of paper which are placed in the jury
box ready for the drawing."  
Seymour D. Thompson &amp; Edwin G. Merriam, A Treatise on the
Organization, Custody and Conduct of Juries, Including Grand
Juries 41 (1882).  Even if we were to assume from the foregoing
that the American experience could be characterized as more
"open," in the sense that certain statutes restricted discretion,
we know of no authority that permitted members of the public to
scrutinize any preliminary or tentative lists that may have led
to the final one.  Certainly, there is no historical support for
the kind of openness that plaintiffs demand.
The next question under the United States Supreme
Court's cases is whether public access to jury lists "plays a
particularly significant positive role in the actual functioning
of the process."  Press-Enterprise II, 478 US at 11.  As noted,
the United States Supreme Court has emphasized the function of
openness in criminal trials, in which the public may observe the
process.  "The value of openness lies in the fact that people not
actually attending trials can have confidence that standards of
fairness are being observed; the sure knowledge that anyone is
free to attend gives assurance that established procedures are
being followed and that deviations will become known."  Press-Enterprise I, 464 US at 508 (emphasis in original).  That is,
criminal trials should be conducted openly, with an audience, so
that the public may verify that the government is acting fairly
in prosecuting defendants.  But does that unremarkable
proposition respecting the trial process itself translate into a
requirement of transparency throughout the multi-step, pretrial
process that produces a panel of venire to serve at the trial?
We think not.  We note especially that, in concluding
that public participation plays a role in the governmental
function of selecting names for jury lists, and that a qualified
right to jury records therefore falls within the protections of
the First Amendment, the Court of Appeals proceeded from several
dubious premises.  First, it asserted that, "although access to
jury lists is not the same as access to voir dire, the
differences are not significant."  Jury Service, 199 Or App at
120.  Second, it opined that the timing of the process of
compiling jury lists is of no importance, even though, "[w]hen
that process [of compiling juror information] takes place, the
term during which the selected jurors will sit has not begun." 
Id. at 122.  Third, the Court of Appeals concluded that, because
the jury selection process at trial is open to the public, "that
process must be open from the first step."  Id. at 123.
The best way that we can summarize our criticism of the
foregoing is to say that the Court of Appeals mistook access to a
public trial for access to government information.  The United
States Supreme Court's emphasis in the Press-Enterprise cases was
on access of the public to the trial itself, not on the process
that lead to the selection of the actors in that event.  Those
cases establish that the public has a right to attend criminal
trials.  The selection of names for the list of prospective
jurors, however, is one or more (sometimes several) steps removed
from the trial itself.  Unlike the Press-Enterprise cases,
plaintiffs here do not assert a right to view a process, such as
a trial, but instead demand to see a work product that government
employees have created pursuant to statutory directives.  See ORS
10.215 (describing creation of master list); ORS 10.225
(describing creation of term jury lists).  Unlike actual trials,
public access plays no significant role in the official and
largely rote function of collecting and winnowing names for jury
lists.
In fact, as plaintiffs themselves have framed it, this
dispute actually is about plaintiffs' asserted right to examine
the work product of governmental officials, after those officials
have combed through official records and made selections from
lists of names to determine which citizens might be called for
jury duty and which ones will not.  So understood, the dispute is
far more analogous to cases in which the United States Supreme
Court has ruled that the general public does not have a First
Amendment right of access to places, information, and documents
within the government's control than it is to the Press-Enterprise cases.  See, e.g., Los Angeles Police Department v.
United Reporting Publishing Corp., 528 US 32, 120 S Ct 483, 145 L
Ed 2d 451 (1999) (First Amendment does not require police
department to release arrestees' addresses to general public);
Houchins v. KQED, Inc., 438 US 1, 89 S Ct 2588, 57 L Ed 2d 553
(1978) (First Amendment does not give journalists right to
photograph jail facilities).  In our view, the Press-Enterprise
cases do not support plaintiffs' theory, and we know of no other
source of law that will better serve them.
We conclude that there is no right of access under the
First Amendment to jury pool records of the kind sought here.  As
previously noted, we have considered the parties' other arguments
not premised on the First Amendment and agree with the Court of
Appeals that those arguments are not well taken.  It follows that
the trial court's grant of summary judgment to defendants was
correct.  The Court of Appeals erred in ruling to the contrary.
The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed.  The
judgment of the circuit court is affirmed.
1. Plaintiff Langley presently is the defendant in a pending aggravated murder case, but he
does not rely on that status in this proceeding.   
2. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution provides, in part:  "Congress shall
make no law * * * abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press * * *."