Opinion ID: 490522
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: White Persons as a Cognizable Group

Text: 82 The State's contention that White persons do not constitute a cognizable or distinctive group for Sixth Amendment purposes need not detain us long. Although the Supreme Court has declined to explore precisely the contours of cognizability, see Lockhart v. McCree, 106 S.Ct. at 1765, it has made it clear that the concept of 'distinctiveness' must be linked to the purposes of the fair cross-section requirement, which are 83 (1) guard[ing] against the exercise of arbitrary power and ensuring that the commonsense judgment of the community will act as a hedge against the overzealous or mistaken prosecutor, (2) preserving public confidence in the fairness of the criminal justice system, and (3) implementing our belief that sharing in the administration of justice is a phase of civic responsibility. 84 Id. (quoting Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 530-31, 95 S.Ct. 692, 697-98, 42 L.Ed.2d 690 (1975). 85 It is plain that the exclusion of entire racial groups from jury service for reasons wholly unrelated to the ability of the individuals to serve as jurors in a particular case is squarely within these parameters. Though such wholesale exclusion is more often practiced against minorities or traditionally disadvantaged members of society, the exclusion of groups normally in the majority is no less objectionable for it arbitrarily deprives that group of a share of the responsibility for the administration of justice, deprives the defendant of the possibility that his petit jury will reflect a fair cross section of the community, and gives every appearance of unfairness. 86 D. The Challenge to Chief Judge Brieant's Findings 87 After conducting a lengthy hearing at which, inter alia, the ADA testified as to his reasons for his peremptory challenges, Chief Judge Brieant found that the ADA had exercised those challenges deliberately to exclude White jurors solely because of their race, seeking to remove as many White prospective jurors as possible. Chief Judge Brieant found that the reasons adduced by Levin for his challenges were circumlocutory, trivial, childish, incredible, and designed to cover up the ADA's discriminatory intent. Judge Goettel, on the other hand, who did not conduct any evidentiary hearing in ruling on Schreiber's petition, expressed the view that the ADA's testimony was candid. The State urges that we reject the findings of Chief Judge Brieant and accept instead the finding of Judge Goettel. We decline to do so. 88 The findings of the trial court are to be upheld on appeal unless they are clearly erroneous. Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, N.C., 470 U.S. 564, 573-74, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 1511-12, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985). Assessments of credibility of witnesses are peculiarly within the province of a trier of fact who has had an opportunity to view and hear the witnesses, and such assessments are entitled to considerable deference on review. Id. Plainly the district court's decision to disbelieve the testimony of a witness who has appeared before it must be respected where the evidence adduced supports that decision. 89 The evidence adduced at the evidentiary hearing on Roman's petition amply supports Chief Judge Brieant's rejection of the reasons offered by Levin as pretextual. Such general responses as lifestyle and background were properly rejected as inadequate statements of racially neutral reasons, given the prima facie case of discrimination established by Roman. Further, many of the offered explanations--e.g., the notion that knowledge of electronics, bookkeeping, and computers might prevent a person from accepting the reasonable doubt standard of proof, or that persons whose relatives had law enforcement jobs would identify with law enforcement officials and therefore vote against conviction--were on their face unworthy of belief. Moreover, though the law enforcement connection was used as an explanation for some of the challenges to White prospective jurors, some non-white prospective jurors with similar connections went unchallenged by the State. Finally, the ADA's withdrawal of one of his challenges rather than disclosing its basis, and the explanation offered for that withdrawal--i.e., that he was getting heat from the defense because of his persistent challenges to White jurors--were further evidence permitting the inference that the challenges were racially motivated. 90 The findings of Chief Judge Brieant that the ADA's proffered reasons were pretexts to disguise the racially discriminatory use of the State's peremptory challenges are thus not clearly erroneous and may not be set aside. The contrary finding of Judge Goettel, who did not conduct a hearing and did not view the witness's demeanor, is not entitled to deference. We conclude that Chief Judge Brieant correctly found that Roman established that the State had used most of its peremptory challenges to challenge White prospective jurors solely on the basis of their race. E. The Propriety of Habeas Relief 91 This conclusion does not, however, answer the ultimate question of whether Roman was entitled to have his conviction set aside. In assessing the propriety of habeas corpus relief, we are constrained to give some attention to the actual composition of the jury before which Roman was tried, for though the prosecutor acted improperly in attempting to eliminate Whites from the jury, he did not entirely succeed, and the jury actually came rather close to representing a fair cross section of the community in which the trial took place. 92 We return to the principle that what the Sixth Amendment guarantees to a defendant is not that he will have a petit jury of any particular composition but that he will have the possibility of a jury that reflects a fair cross section of the community. The prosecutor violates Sixth Amendment rights when he starts out to eliminate that possibility, and it is incumbent upon the trial judge to apply the McCray Sixth Amendment principles during the jury selection process, and to grant the defendant an appropriate remedy when a prima facie case has been made of the prosecutor's racially discriminatory use of peremptory challenges and the state has not successfully rebutted that case by presenting creditable race-neutral reasons for the challenges. If the judge fails to act and if the prosecutor has succeeded in excluding a cognizable group from the jury by the discriminatory use of his peremptory challenges, that constitutionally guaranteed possibility has been artificially eliminated, and the defendant's constitutional right has been impaired. In such a case, a defendant is entitled to have his conviction set aside and to receive a new trial. 93 Where, however, the actions of the prosecutor have not succeeded in excluding the targeted group and have not reduced the petit jury representatives of that group dramatically below the group's percentage in the venire or in the population of the community, it is difficult to see that the defendant has in fact been denied the possibility that the Sixth Amendment guaranteed him. Rather, if that group is not significantly underrepresented, it appears that the possibility constitutionally guaranteed to the defendant has come to fruition and that the defendant has therefore not been injured by the prosecutor's efforts to eliminate the cross-section possibility. 94 In the present case, these observations lead us to conclude that Roman's conviction should not have been set aside. The testimony at the hearing before Chief Judge Brieant indicated that, historically, as many as 75% of the members of the Bronx County jury panels might ordinarily be dark skinned. Here, the actual petit jury was 75% Black or Hispanic and 25% White. Nor was the composition of the jury radically different from that of the Bronx County population, 34% White, for had one more White been added to the jury, the percentage of Whites on the jury would almost precisely have matched their percentage in the community. 95 Further, it is arguable that the prosecution was not actually responsible for reducing the percentage of Whites on the jury below that of the community, for there were two White prospective jurors whom the ADA had not challenged but who were removed by the defendants. Had these two jurors been seated, and had the ADA challenged no Whites in addition to those he eventually did challenge (a highly speculative hypothesis on this record), the jury could have included five Whites, or 42%, a figure above the community population percentage and squarely within the normal range for Bronx County jury panels according to all of the witnesses who testified. In all the circumstances, we conclude that the presence on the jury of only three Whites instead of four did not mean that the jury did not comprise a fair cross section. 96 In sum, although a prosecutor's actions in challenging a group of prospective jurors because of their race are improper and are unfair to those jurors, these principles do not mandate a federal habeas court's vacation, on Sixth Amendment grounds, of a state conviction where, though the prosecutor has sought to skew the jury, the jury as empaneled reasonably approximates a cross section of the community. Though the prosecutor's actions are to be condemned, the defendant's conviction before a jury that was in fact a fair cross section should be allowed to stand.