Opinion ID: 1760434
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Motion to Strike Venire

Text: As his first guilt phase issue, Gordon contends that since all the members of the venire from which his jury was chosen were white, he had no chance to get a jury of his peers that was a fair cross-section of the community in Pinellas County. [10] His claim is without merit. The United States Supreme Court has set clear guidelines to ensure that juries are drawn from a fair cross section of society. In Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 538, 95 S.Ct. 692, 702, 42 L.Ed.2d 690 (1975), the Court held that petit juries must be drawn from a source fairly representative of the community [although] we impose no requirement that petit juries actually chosen must mirror the community and reflect the various distinctive groups in the population. To that end, while defendants are not entitled to a particular jury composition, jury wheels, pools of names, panels, or venires from which juries are drawn must not systematically exclude distinctive groups in the community and thereby fail to be reasonably representative thereof. Id., at 538, 95 S.Ct. at 702 (emphasis added). Accordingly, the Court invalidated those sections of Louisiana's constitution and criminal procedure code which precluded women from serving on juries unless they expressly so requested in writing. Several years later under slightly different facts, the Court invalidated a Missouri statute which provided an automatic exemption for any woman that asked not to serve on jury duty. Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357, 99 S.Ct. 664, 58 L.Ed.2d 579 (1979). To give effect to Taylor's fair cross-section requirement, the Court established a three-prong test for determining a prima facie violation thereof. Id., at 364, 99 S.Ct. at 668. The proponent must demonstrate: (1) that the group alleged to be excluded is a `distinctive' group in the community; (2) that the representation of this group in venires from which juries are selected is not fair and reasonable in relation to the number of such persons in the community; and (3) that this underrepresentation is due to systematic exclusion of the group in the jury-selection process. Id. (emphasis added). Since the Court in Taylor had already found that women are sufficiently numerous and distinct from men, 419 U.S. at 531, 95 S.Ct. at 698, Duren only needed to satisfy the last two prongs of the test. He did this by presenting statistical data which showed that women comprised over fifty percent of the relevant community but only approximately fifteen percent of the jury venires, Duren, 439 U.S. at 364-66, 99 S.Ct. at 668-69, and demonstrating that this large discrepancy occurred not just occasionally, but in every weekly venire for a period of nearly a year. Id., at 366, 99 S.Ct. at 669. The Court concluded that this undisputed trend manifestly indicates that the cause of the underrepresentation was systematicthat is, inherent in the particular jury-selection process utilized. Id. Thus the Court instituted the procedures for establishing a prima facie violation of the Sixth Amendment's fair cross-section requirement. [11] In this case, there is no evidence in the record that Gordon followed these procedures in challenging the venire. Indeed, beyond some general objections about the venire's composition, the issue was only briefly raised and then without supporting data. Since counsel was presumably aware of the fair cross-section requirement and the Duren test for establishing a prima facie violation, it made no sense to claim, off the cuff, that there was an unrepresentative venire if, first, counsel did not have any supporting data and, second, counsel was aware of the random method from which venires were generated in his county. [12] Counsel made no attempt to comply with the Duren procedures for substantiating a fair cross-section violation, not to mention Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.290, which requires that [a] challenge to the [jury] panel shall be in writing and shall specify the facts constituting the ground of the challenge. (Emphasis added.) Instead, after the venire entered the courtroom, McDonald's counsel simply commented to the court that despite the fact that both of our clients are black, there are no blacks on the jury panel. Counsel objected that the venire did not represent a fair cross section of Pinellas County. After Gordon's counsel joined in the objection, the trial judge noted that: Counsel on both sides are well aware that the jurors are selected at random in Pinellas County by computer and they are likewise selected at random as a panel downstairs. I'm sure there are some black ones downstairs, but if I started plucking them out, that would be just as wrong. In other words, I have no reason to doubt that these folks were picked totally at random by the computer selection and at this point in time, I'm sure we may be adding to the group, so your motion is noted. It's overruled because there's nothing I can do about it. But as I said, if there's any change, why I will make sure that the record reflects that there are some blacks to be added to the panel. [13] (Emphasis added.) Neither McDonald's nor Gordon's counsel challenged the factual basis of the trial judge's ruling that the venire was randomly selected by computer, nor did either of them follow any of the procedures established in Duren or required by Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.290 for substantiating a prima facie violation of the fair cross-section requirement. Similarly, on appeal, Gordon does not challenge the process from which the venire is generated in Pinellas County. Indeed, Gordon acknowledges that the venire was selected randomly when he suggests in his brief that [i]f there were no blacks there that day, the court could have reconvened the next day and used the same random procedure it used to get these first fifty. (Emphasis added.) Accordingly, we agree with the State that our decision in Johnson v. State, 660 So.2d 648 (Fla.1995), is dispositive of this issue. [14] In Johnson, the defendant claimed that he was not tried by a representative jury since, in his four separate cases, only two out of one hundred sixty venire members were black. We dismissed Johnson's claim, finding no error since it was unrebutted that the venire was randomly generated by computer. Id. at 661. Since that is precisely the situation here, we find no error in the trial court's denial of Gordon's motion. Therefore, we decline to employ a Duren analysis since Gordon made no factual showing to the trial court from which such an analysis could be made.