Opinion ID: 386882
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The State's Rebuttal Evidence

Text: 37 Since we find that Barksdale has not proven a prima facie case of jury discrimination, the state's rebuttal evidence may seem to be superfluous. But we hold, as an alternative grounds for our decision, that even assuming, arguendo, that Barksdale did meet his initial burden, the state adequately rebutted his case. 38 There is extensive testimony in the record by judges of the Parish criminal courts and representatives of the Jury Commission regarding the juror selection procedure. Such testimony has considerable importance. Castaneda v. Partida, supra, 430 U.S. at 488 n.8 & 498-99, 97 S.Ct. at 1276-77 n.8 & 1282; Swain v. Alabama, supra, 380 U.S. at 207 n.4 & 209, 85 S.Ct. at 829 n.4 & 830. The judges testified that they did not intentionally include or exclude blacks from the jury venires or the grand or petit juries, but that a disproportionately large number of blacks asked to be excused because of economic hardship. The stipulated testimony of the Jury Commission shows that an exceedingly large number of the Negro males who appear before the Jury Commissioners disqualify themselves for jury service by stating either that they cannot read or write or that they have had only a very small amount of formal schooling, or by showing that they are self-employed or that their employers will not excuse them from work and will not pay them their wages if they serve on a jury .... While simple protestations of good faith in making individual selections are insufficient to dispel a prima facie case of systematic exclusion, Alexander v. Louisiana, supra, 405 U.S. at 632, 92 S.Ct. at 1226, the assertions by the judges and Jury Commissioners of Orleans Parish are strongly corroborated by other evidence in the record. The 1960 census figures introduced into evidence by Barksdale and summarized in the following table show that 70.8% of black males in Orleans Parish earned less than $3,000 per year, while only 35.9% of the white population earned this little; 93.6% of black men had annual incomes of $4,999 or less, compared with 59.5% of whites. 39 Number with Number with No Income or No Income or With Income With Income of $2,999 of$4,999 Total or Less Percent or Less Percent ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Black Males, 14 and Over 76,222 53,944 70.8 71,339 93.6 White Males, 14 and Over 202,283 72,668 35.9 120,272 59.5 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 40 Source: Bureau of the Census, 1960 Census of Population (Part 20, Louisiana), 41 Table 133. 42 Thus, the assertions by the judge and jury commissioners that blacks were underrepresented because they requested to be excused for economic hardship cannot be dismissed as mere ad hoc rationalization designed to camouflage invidious discrimination. 43 The panel opinion dismissed the state's explanations for the racial disparities as either unsupported by the record or foreclosed by this court's opinion in Labat v. Bennett, supra. We emphatically disagree. As previously shown, use of statistics describing the educational level of prospective black jurors substantially reduces the disparity between eligible black jurors and those actually serving on Orleans Parish jury venires. Thus, the differing literacy levels of prospective white and black jurors cannot be dismissed as a partial explanation for reduced black jury participation. Furthermore, the Jury Commission's practice of granting hardship excuses to prospective jurors cannot be dismissed as being itself unconstitutional. Labat v. Bennett, supra, is not applicable to the facts of this case. Labat held that the exclusion of all daily wage earners as a class from jury service violated the Constitution. 29 Similarly, Thiel v. Southern Pacific Co., 328 U.S. 217, 66 S.Ct. 984, 90 L.Ed. 1181 (1946), is not analogous; in that case, as in Labat, the Jury Commission deliberately and intentionally excluded from the jury lists all persons who work for a daily wage. 328 U.S. at 221, 66 S.Ct. at 986. The district court in this case specifically found that the Jury Commission did not exclude the entire class of daily wage earners. The panel opinion and the litigants appear to agree that about one third of those who were called to appear before the Jury Commission were black, so there was no discrimination at that stage. 30 Then, in personal appearance before the Commission members, the uncontroverted evidence is that workers were excused for economic hardship only on request. Neither Labat nor Thiel can be read so as to proscribe the benign, and in many cases certainly beneficent, practice of excusing from jury service those persons on whom it would impose an intolerable economic burden. It is clear that a federal judge would be justified in excusing a daily wage earner for whom jury service would entail an undue financial hardship. Thiel v. Southern Pacific Co., supra, 328 U.S. at 224, 66 S.Ct. at 987. See also 28 U.S.C. § 1863 (permitting excuses for undue hardship).