Title: State v. Procell
Citation: 332 So. 2d 814
Docket Number: N/A
State: Louisiana
Issuer: Louisiana Supreme Court
Date: June 2, 1976

332 So. 2d 814 (1976) STATE of Louisiana v. Hugh Lee PROCELL a/k/a R. D. Procell. No. 57350. Supreme Court of Louisiana. May 17, 1976. Dissenting Opinion June 2, 1976. Rehearing Denied June 18, 1976. *815 John P. Godfrey, Many, for defendant-appellant. William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., James Lynn Davis, Dist. Atty., for plaintiff-appellee. CALOGERO, Justice. Defendant Hugh Lee Procell was charged by bill of information in May of 1975 with attempted second degree murder of Clellie Lee Batson in violation of R.S. 14:30.1. Procell was tried by jury, convicted, and sentenced to sixteen years imprisonment. From that conviction and sentence, defendant has perfected this appeal. The single perfected assignment of error complains that the trial court erred in overruling defendant's motion to quash the information on the grounds that the jury was improperly constituted. Specifically, defendant alleges that the list from which the petit juries are chosen is not made up of names selected at random from a fair cross section of the community because all qualified citizens were not given an opportunity to be considered for jury service, in contravention of the fifth, sixth, and fourteenth amendments to the Constitution of the United States and of Articles I, Section 16 and V, Section 33 of the Louisiana Constitution of 1974. We pretermit the question of whether the system of selecting the general venire violated defendant's rights under the federal constitution and statutory law. The Louisiana Constitution of 1974 states that "Every person charged with a crime. . . is entitled to [an] . . . impartial trial." La.Const. art. I, § 16 (1974). This guarantee of an impartial trial continues the predecessor provision in the 1921 Constitution. La.Const. art. VII, § 41 (1921).[1] These general provisions which extend to criminal defendants the right to an impartial trial apply to the selection of the general venire by the jury commission of each parish. C.Cr.P. arts. 408, 409. Although the names of the persons which make up the general venire must be selected impartially, each of those persons may not actually have to serve on a jury because he may be exempt from jury service.[2] Before January of 1975, exemptions from jury service were granted by the Legislature. R.S. 13:3042, 13:3056; C.Cr.P. arts. 402, 403. However, the 1974 Constitution changed this system, directing that this *816 Court decide which classes of qualified[3] persons are exemptable.[4] Specifically, the Constitution mandates that "The supreme court shall provide by rule for exemption of jurors." La.Const. art. V, § 33(B). In response to this constitutional charge, this Court unanimously passed Rule XXV, effective January 1, 1975, which states in full as follows: Coincident with this constitutional directive, the Legislature repealed C.Cr.P. art. 402 and amended Article 403 to provide: "Exemptions from jury service shall be as provided by rules of the Louisiana Supreme Court pursuant to Section 33(B) of Article V of the Louisiana Constitution of 1974." Our rule was passed with the stated purpose of guaranteeing "that all qualified citizens shall have the opportunity to be considered for jury service." Under the rule certain classes of qualified citizens are granted a personal exemption from jury service. The rule directs no action on the part of the jury commissioners whose preparation of the general venire is directed by Code of Criminal Procedure Articles *817 408 et seq. Instead, as we held in State v. Gaines, 315 So. 2d 298, 300 (La.1975), the rule "effectively [prohibits] the exclusion from the jury selection process of any qualified segment of our citizenry...." In Sabine Parish, however, the rule has been used to facilitate the exclusion of segments of the population. There, the five jury commissioners attempt themselves to avoid selecting a person for the general venire whom they believe falls into one of the exemptable classes of citizens.[5] J. E. Wright, the Clerk of Court and one of the five jury commissioners, testified in response to questions as follows: Thus, under the system employed in Sabine Parish, certain persons qualified to serve on juries are never given an opportunity to serve because the jury commissioners exclude their names from the general venire on the basis that they fall under exemption set out by the rule, a rule which allows them, if they choose, to serve notwithstanding the claimable exemption. This exclusion clearly contravenes the letter and spirit of the law. It means that the general venire is not selected impartially, as our constitution and statutes require, and that the general venire was improperly constituted under our Rule XXV, Code of Criminal Procedure Article 403, and Louisiana Constitutional Articles I, § 3 and V, § 33 (1974). In order to enforce these provisions, we are constrained to reverse the conviction of defendant Procell and remand his case to the district court for retrial by a petit jury chosen from a general venire which has been selected according to law. The state argues that this Court has recently affirmed two convictions of defendants who were tried and/or indicted by juries drawn from this same general venire.[6] However well-intentioned our efforts were in attempting to ease the commissioners' change from an unlawful system of choosing the venire to a lawful system, those efforts have proved fruitless.[7] It is now clear to us that the jury commissioners have made no attempt to correct or change that system. Since we have the chief responsibility for the enforcement of the laws of this state and since the only method open to us for that enforcement is a case-by-case review of convictions, reversing those convictions gained after improper procedures, we must reverse the conviction of defendant Procell. *818 The state also argues that defendant Procell cannot be heard to complain about the method used to choose the names in the general venire because at his trial he failed to exercise all of his peremptory challenges. It is true, of course, that if a defendant does not exhaust his peremptory challenges he cannot complain on appeal of a judge's ruling refusing to sustain a challenge for cause. C.Cr.P. art. 800. However, no such exhaustion is a prerequisite to the complaint that the selection of the names for the general venire was unconstitutional. Although we do not base our ruling on this ground, we note that defendant makes a second argument to us to support his position that the venire was improperly constituted. He complains that the method used by the commissioners to prepare the venire does not produce a jury selected at random from a fair cross section of the community. The basis of this assertion is the fact that names for the general venire are not drawn indiscriminately from available lists, but are selected individually by the commissioners because of their personal judgment that the person selected would make a good juryman.[8] Although this personalized selection offers the opportunity for commissioners to include in the venire only special segments of the population, or to systematically exclude classes of qualified citizens, either of which would violate the fair cross section standard,[9] there is no evidence in the record before us that this is the case in Sabine Parish. In the absence of any evidence in the record supporting defendant's allegation that the jury pool did not represent a fair cross section of the community, we cannot assume such a violation. State v. Morgan, 315 So. 2d 632 (La.1975); State v. Anderson, 315 So. 2d 266 (La.1975). Accordingly, for the reasons assigned, the conviction and sentence of this defendant are reversed, and the case is remanded for retrial. SANDERS, C.J., dissents with written reasons. SUMMERS, J., dissents with written reasons. MARCUS, J., dissents. SANDERS, Chief Justice (disesnting). Article 419 of the Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure provides: Here, the testimony indicates that the Jury Commission attempted to avoid selecting exempt persons for the general venire, unless they waived the exemption. There is no showing of how many, if any, exempt persons were so excluded. The method used here to excuse exempt persons from jury service is irregular. *819 However, as to the present case, there is certainly no showing of fraud or great wrong, as required by the above code article. See State v. Lynch, La., 323 So. 2d 781 (1975); State v. Larue, La., 324 So. 2d 384 (1975). The irregular practice can be easily corrected by a proper order from the trial court. I find no adequate basis for upsetting the conviction. For the reasons assigned, I respectfully dissent. SUMMERS, Justice (dissenting). I cannot agree with the majority opinion which is in direct contravention of this Court's unanimous opinion in State v. Clifton, 247 La. 495, 172 So. 2d 657 (1965), where we said: 3 LSA-R.S. 15:174 as amended by Act 215 of 1962. 4 Although the jury commissioners testified to this effect, they also testified that it was possible that some persons entitled to exemptions may have been included if they were unaware of their occupations. Our review of the evidence establishes that some of the persons entitled to exemptions were included on the general venire. I respectfully dissent. [1] The same guarantee, of course, is afforded to criminal defendants by the federal constitution. The United States Supreme Court has held that the sixth amendment right to an impartial jury encompasses a fundamental right to trial by a jury which is a truly representative cross section of the community. Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 95 S. Ct. 692, 42 L. Ed. 2d 690 (1975). See Peters v. Kiff, 407 U.S. 493, 92 S. Ct. 2163, 33 L. Ed. 2d 83 (1972); Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 88 S. Ct. 1444, 20 L. Ed. 2d 491 (1968); Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 62 S. Ct. 457, 86 L. Ed. 680 (1942). This sixth amendment right applies to trials in state cases through the fourteenth amendment. Taylor v. Louisiana, supra. [2] Of course, there are other reasons that a particular person may not be required to serve on a jury; for example, he may be challenged for cause. C.Cr.P. art. 797. [3] A qualified citizen is one who has reached the age of majority La.Const. art. V, § 33(A) (1974) and who meets the qualifications set out by the Legislature in C.Cr.P. art. 401. [4] It was felt that taking the responsibility for exemptions from the Legislature would lessen the power of particular interest groups to provide for their members exemptions from jury service. This change would presumably raise the number of qualified citizens available for jury service. XI Transcripts of the Constitutional Convention of 1974, 36th Convention Day, pp. 98-110. [5] No dispute exists between the state and defense as to the method used in Sabine Parish to prepare the lists of names which make up the general venire. The state and defense have stipulated to the testimony of Elmo Langton, the Registrar of Voters for Sabine Parish, and J. E. Wright, the Clerk of Court and one of the five Jury Commissioners of the Parish. The parties likewise stipulated that the other four jury commissioners' testimony would be consistent with the stipulated testimony of Mr. Wright. [6] See State v. Lynch, 323 So. 2d 781 (La. 1975); State v. Larue, 324 So. 2d 384 (La. 1975). [7] When questioned by the court in oral argument, the prosecutor acknowledged that no changes were made nor contemplated following the general venire and petit jury selection in the cases of Lynch, Larue, and the case now under consideration. [8] The system used in this parish is very different from the system we approved in State v. Millsap, 258 La. 883, 248 So. 2d 324, 329 (1971) where we described the system used in preparing the venire in this way: "Each of the five jury commissioners submits lists of names from which individuals are selected to supplement the general venire. These lists are, for example, telephone books, light meter lists, voter registration rolls, union memberships, employee lists of large companies, a Junior Chamber of Commerce membership roster and church memberships. "From these lists, names are selected at random, such as every third name, and no effort is made to include or exclude any particular class. The lists contain names from all walks of life an all geographic areas. The venire is truly composed of a cross section of the eligible population, selected `impartially' in keeping with the mandate of Article 408 of the Code of Criminal Procedure." [9] See Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 95 S. Ct. 692, 42 L. Ed. 2d 690 (1975); State v. Anderson, 315 So. 2d 266 (La.1975) and the cases cited therein.