Opinion ID: 311796
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Place of Trial

Text: 4 Another matter deserves discussion before we proceed to the point that we deem to require reversal. The District Court for the Eastern District of New York is authorized to sit not only at its headquarters in Brooklyn, but also in Mineola and Westbury, Long Island. 28 U.S.C. Sec. 112(c). Judge Travia and Senior Judge Zavatt have sat regularly at Westbury. 2 The Individual Assignment and Calendar Rules for the Eastern District provide that cases shall be assigned to all judges on a random basis, with the result that the judges sitting at Westbury may be initially assigned a case where trial in Brooklyn would be more convenient. Under Rule 1.1(b), a criminal case may be designated as a Westbury case if the crime is alleged to have been committed in whole or in substantial part in Nassau or Suffolk counties or if the interests of justice so require; however, Rule 1.1(d) provides that [t]he assigned judge shall have discretion to designate a case as a 'Westbury case' whether or not any of the parties desire such designation, and that such designation or the lack of it does not require that judge to conduct proceedings in the case in whole or [in] part at any particular place. 5 The instant case having been assigned to Judge Travia in Westbury, defendant moved on March 28, 1972 for its reassignment to Brooklyn since the crime was committed in Queens County. We perceive no sound reason for the denial of the motion. There is not the slightest indication why the interests of justice required trial at a point 26 miles away from the headquarters of the court and the United States Attorney, and nearly that much further away from the office of defense counsel in Manhattan. According to Fernandez' affidavit on the transfer motion-not contradicted by the government in this respect-none of the principal witnesses lived in Nassau County or in a place to which Westbury, without public transportation, was easily accessible. So far as the record shows, the only person convenienced by trial at Westbury was the judge. Denial of the motion to reassign the case seems to have violated the second sentence of F.R.Cr.P. 18, 3 and we might well have reversed on this ground alone if defendant had been able to show any prejudice. While he made no attempt to do this except on the matter of jury selection, that and other claims relating to trial at Westbury should be discussed since they may create problems in future cases unless corrective measures are taken. 6 There is no merit in Fernandez' most extreme argument, namely, that by having been tried in Westbury rather than Brooklyn, he was deprived of rights under Article III, Section 2 and the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution, and under the first sentence of F.R.Crim.P. 18. Both the Sixth Amendment and the first sentence of Rule 18 speak of a right to trial in the district where the crime occurred; since the theft of which Fernandez was convicted occurred in Queens, in the Eastern District of New York, trial in Westbury, in Nassau County, a county adjacent to Queens and within the District, rather than in Brooklyn, the headquarters of the Eastern District, does not offend the terms of these venue requirements. Indeed, Rule 18 was amended in 1966 to eliminate an earlier requirement that the trial take place in the district and division where the crime occurred. The Advisory Committee suggesting the change relied on dictum in Supreme Court opinions indicating that trial within the district but not within the division was constitutionally permissible, see United States v. Anderson, 328 U.S. 699, 66 S.Ct. 1213, 90 L.Ed. 1529 (1946), on which lower federal courts have also relied, see Lafoon v. United States, 250 F.2d 958 (5th Cir. 1958); United States v. Partin, 320 F.Supp. 275 (E.D.La.1970). It follows a fortiori that when a district is not separated into divisions, like the Eastern District of New York, trial at any place within the district is allowable under the Sixth Amendment and the first sentence of F.R.Cr.P. 18. 7 However, satisfaction of this rather simple requirement need not preclude further inquiry into the propriety of what was done here. In its most extensive discussion of the venue requirements of the Sixth Amendment, United States v. Johnson, 323 U.S. 273, 65 S.Ct. 249, 89 L.Ed. 236 (1944), the Supreme Court has suggested a number of principles and policies embodied therein. 4 Two of these-that the provision avoids the unfairness and hardship to which trial in an environment alien to the accused exposes him, United States v. Johnson, supra, 323 U.S. at 275, 65 S.Ct. at 250; see also United States v. Cores, 356 U.S. 405, 407, 78 S.Ct. 875, 2 L.Ed.2d 873 (1958), and prohibits prosecution remote from home and from appropriate facilities for defense, United States v. Johnson, supra, 323 U.S. at 275, 65 S.Ct. at 250; are somewhat undercut by clear holdings, compelled by the constitutional text, that trial must be in the district where the crime is committed rather than in a different one where the defendant resides. Platt v. Minnesota Min. & Mfg. Co., 376 U.S. 240, 245, 84 S.Ct. 769, 11 L.Ed.2d 674 (1964); United States v. Bithoney, 472 F.2d 16, 22 (2 Cir. 1973). 5 However, a third policy enunciated in Johnson-that too great leeway in the selection of a situs for trial leads to the appearance of abuses, if not to abuses, in the selection of what may be deemed a tribunal favorable to the prosecution, 323 U.S. at 275, 65 S.Ct. at 250, is pertinent to the trial at issue here, particularly since, this being a federal trial, we are not limited to the confines of the Sixth Amendment but can exercise our supervisory power, see Ballard v. United States, 329 U.S. 187, 192, 67 S.Ct. 261, 91 L.Ed. 181 (1946). The holding of a criminal trial, over the objection of the defendant, in a place removed from the court's headquarters, having no relation to the place of the crime, and for no apparent reason other than the convenience of the judge, may [lead] to the appearance of abuses, and this is heightened by Fernandez' points concerning the selection of the jury to which we will now refer. 8 Prior to the interrogation of the veniremen on voir dire, Fernandez moved -apparently pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1867(a) 6 -to have testimony on the procedures used in selecting the array. Thereupon the Jury Clerk for the Eastern District of New York was called and testified at some length but, as will appear below, without great clarity, about the District's system in selecting and calling the venires. Following this testimony Fernandez offered to present witnesses who would testify concerning the ethnic, economic and age characteristics of the population affected by the selection procedures. This offer of proof was denied by the judge with the statement that he could almost take judicial notice of [this] fact. All you do is look at the census reports, the last census reports of 1970 will give you those figures. 9 We think this denial was illadvised. 7 If the judge meant, which he hardly could have, that a reading of the Census figures would show the defendant's contention was necessarily without merit, we could not agree; as shown below, they indicate rather strongly that racial disparities were at least a possible outcome of the selection procedures. Further, under the Jury Selection and Service Act of 1968, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1861 et seq., a number of possible challenges to the jury selection system could not be answered merely by reference to the racial composition of the district and to the procedures used. 10 The process for selecting veniremen under the Eastern District's Jury Selection Plan, 8 as it appeared from the testimony of the Jury Clerk, was as follows: The names of registered voters in the Eastern District are entered upon computer tape. From this list the computer regularly retrieves on a random basis a designated number of prospective veniremen. These are then sent questionnaires advising them of their duty to serve on a future petit jury. Initially, those who live more than 25 miles from the Federal Courthouse in Cadman Plaza, Brooklyn, are allowed, upon request, an automatic deferral on the basis of hardship. 9 Subsequently, when a trial is set for Westbury, jurors not already so deferred or otherwise excluded are allowed another chance at automatic deferral upon request if their residence is more than 25 miles from Westbury. Thus, if we understand the testimony of the Jury Clerk, this series of cumulative deferment allowances reaches the anomalous result that in Westbury trials the only area in which jurors are not allowed an automatic deferment on the basis of distance is, not a circle with a 25-mile radius from Westbury, but rather the area within two intersecting arcs encompassing towns within 25 miles of both Westbury and Cadman Plaza. 10 11 Federal policies of fair and impartial jury selection procedures were most eloquently stated in Thiel v. Southern Pac. Co., 328 U.S. 217, 220, 66 S.Ct. 984, 985, 90 L.Ed. 1181 (1946): 12 The American tradition of trial by jury, considered in connection with either criminal or civil proceedings, necessarily contemplates an impartial jury drawn from a cross-section of the community. [citations omitted] This does not mean, of course, that every jury must contain representatives of all the economic, social, religious, racial, political and geographical groups of the community; frequently such complete representation would be impossible. But it does mean that prospective jurors shall be selected by court officials without systematic and intentional exclusion of any of these groups. Recognition must be given to the fact that those eligible for jury service are to be found in every stratum of society. Jury competence is an individual rather than a group or class matter. That fact lies at the very heart of the jury system. To disregard it is to open the door to class distinctions and discriminations which are abhorrent to the democratic ideals of trial by jury. 13 Such language-in particular the phrase cross-section of the community-is helpful only as a description of rather than a solution to the problem of determining which jury selection procedures are permissible and which are not. On the one hand, it is clear that a criminal defendant in a federal court has no right to an individual panel represented by any particular racial, social, or economic group. United States v. Dennis, 183 F.2d 201, 224 (2 Cir. 1950), aff'd, 341 U.S. 494, 71 S.Ct. 857, 95 L.Ed. 1137 (1951). Nor does one have a right to exact proportional representation in the array, United States v. Flynn, 216 F.2d 354, 388 (2 Cir. 1954) (Harlan, J.). And use of certain valid selective criteria 11 may have the inevitable effect of detracting from the representative character of venires. United States v. Leonetti, 291 F.Supp. 461, 474 (S.D.N.Y.1968). On the other hand, the Jury Selection and Service Act goes beyond prohibition of intentional distortions and provides that in certain cases affirmative measures must be undertaken to insure that juries [are] selected at random from a fair cross section of the community . . ., 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1861, 1863(b)(2); H.R.Rep. No. 1076, 90th Cong., 2d Sess. (1968), reprinted in 1968 U.S.Code Cong & Adm.News, pp. 1792, 1794. 12 A determination whether the procedures here used sufficiently implemented the goals mandated by the Act, or evidenced signs of improper distortions in selection of the venires, could not have been adequately made without hearing additional testimony concerning the statistical composition of the population and of the venires. Although our disposition of this appeal on other grounds makes it unnecessary for us to determine whether the judge's refusal of the offer to introduce such proof would itself be reversible error, we would not wish to be understood as approving his decision not to hear evidence that might have a bearing on this problem. 14 In particular, it seems to us that the combination of the Eastern District's system of hardship allowances and of the holding of certain trials in Westbury rather than Brooklyn may well lead to departures from the prescriptions of the Jury Selection and Service Act. Hardship allowances based on distance from the courthouse are not in themselves suspect selection criteria. United States v. Kelly, 349 F.2d 720 at 778-779 (2 Cir. 1965), cert. denied, 384 U.S. 947, 86 S.Ct. 1467, 16 L.Ed.2d 544 (1966); United States v. Leonetti, supra, 291 F.Supp. at 474. 13 However, an excuse procedure based on distance, reasonable though this may be from the standpoint of the prospective juror, will have the inevitable effect of tending to concentrate the representation on the venire of those living relatively close to the courthouse. 14 Although this may be without legal consequences when veniremen are selected for a single courthouse within a division or district, see United States v. Leonetti, supra, or when court is held in several places and cases are assigned because they rationally belong there, a more difficult problem is presented when the place of trial-and thus the area of likely concentration in the selection of a venire-is moved from its normal site, over objection, apparently for the sole convenience of the judge. Furthermore, our reading of the gross census figures for the counties involved indicates that the impact of the move to Westbury on the relative incidence of representation of non-white minorities might well have been significant. 15 While the statistical significance and the legal relevance of the selection process cannot be adequately explored on this record, 16 the appearance of abuses, if not . . . abuses, in the selection of what may be deemed a tribunal favorable to the prosecution, United States v. Johnson, supra, enhances our disfavor toward the decision to conduct this trial at Westbury over defendant's objection. We earnestly suggest that the questions canvassed in this section of the opinion, which we have found unnecessary here to decide, receive the immediate attention of the judges of the Eastern District.