Opinion ID: 2084941
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Constitutionality of Jury Composition

Text: Lastly, defendants challenge Rhode Island's system of selecting grand and petit juries, arguing that it effectuates unconstitutional jury composition in violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, as well as the Rhode Island Constitution, and federal and state statutes. Specifically, defendants seek dismissal of their indictments on the ground that the juror selection process in Rhode Island impermissibly results in the exclusion of minorities and residents of the urban communities of Providence, Central Falls, and Pawtucket. The state argues that Rhode Island's method of selecting jurors is constitutional. The state maintains initially, however, that, as a threshold matter, this issue lacks justiciability after this Court's recent decision of State v. Beechum, 933 A.2d 687 (R.I.2007). On October 25, 2004, defendant Ros moved to dismiss the indictment against him, in which motion defendant Sin joined, based on the arguments presented, argued and decided in State v. Tremblay, 2003 WL 23018762 (R.I.Super.Mar.19, 2003), a Superior Court case that was not appealed. The parties and trial justice agreed that, because the identical issuethe constitutionality of jury composition in Rhode Islandrecently had been litigated in Tremblay, it would not be re-litigated in this case, presumably to save time and avoid duplicative effort. Instead, the parties agreed to adopt the record that was before the Superior Court in Tremblay, including the parties' pleadings, memoranda of law, and experts' affidavits. These were incorporated into this case as exhibits. The trial justice, likewise, adopted the decision reached by the trial justice in Tremblay, thereby denying the motion to dismiss the indictments. [28] There was no argument or further discussion of this issue at trial. In light of this procedural posture, we decline to address the merits of this issue on appeal. In the time passing between the motion to dismiss the indictment against defendants and this appeal, this Court decided Beechum, erecting a procedural bar to our consideration of defendants' challenge to the jury selection process. In Beechum, 933 A.2d at 690, we held that the method that the parties used in this caseincorporating the arguments, issues and ultimate decision on the issue of jury selection from another trial court caseis not a proper method of presenting this important constitutional matter. [29] See also State v. Lead Industries Association, Inc., 898 A.2d 1234, 1239 (R.I.2006) (a policy favoring the hasty review of constitutional questions would be ill-advised). The defendants maintain that, in this case, the record was created by incorporating the record from another proceeding. We, however, would be especially troubled to reach an issue of this magnitude in a case, such as here, in which the trial court record contains absolutely no documentation or evidence from this case about the actual jury selection system employed, the composition of the jury pool, the voir dire process that transpired below, or the final composition of the petit jury. Moreover, Sin indicates in his brief that since we decided Tremblay, Rhode Island has changed its jury selection process. It is unclear from the defendants' briefs or from the recordwhich is entirely devoid of facts regarding jury selection for the defendants' trialwhether this change was enacted before or after the jury was selected at their joint trial, giving us even more reason for hesitation. [30] Accordingly, we conclude that the defendants have not presented this Court with a proper issue for appeal.