Opinion ID: 518440
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment Policy

Text: 35 The history of jury selection challenges suggests that it is often in the application of jury selection laws that the gravest violations to the right to a fair and impartial jury occur. See, e.g., Castaneda v. Partida, 430 U.S. 482, 497, 97 S.Ct. 1272, 1281-82, 51 L.Ed.2d 498 (1976); Turner v. Fouche, 396 U.S. 346, 360, 90 S.Ct. 532, 540, 24 L.Ed.2d 567 (1970); Norris v. Alabama, 294 U.S. 587, 55 S.Ct. 579, 79 L.Ed. 1074 (1935); United States v. Gometz, 730 F.2d 475, 479 (7th Cir.1984). Processes which permit human subjectivity to influence an objective, random system often foster biased results. Regardless of the good intentions of the persons in charge of jury selection, their interplay with the system necessarily skews the system established by a court or legislative body. Those intentions have not always been as honorable as the jury supervisor's were in this case. To permit Cook County jurors to define the community in which they serve based on convenience undermines the objectivity of the jury selection system. 36 Likewise a narrow definition of community could undermine the policy of inclusiveness underlying the sixth amendment. Smith v. Texas, 311 U.S. 128, 130, 61 S.Ct. 164, 165, 85 L.Ed. 84 (1940); Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 85, 62 S.Ct. 457, 471, 86 L.Ed. 680 (1942). The Supreme Court established the fair-cross-section-of-the-community criterion, not to exclude minorities, but to increase their participation in the system. The Supreme Court states: 37 [T]he purpose of a jury is to guard against the exercise of arbitrary power--to make available the commonsense judgment of the community as a hedge against the overzealous or mistaken prosecutor and in preference to the professional or perhaps overconditioned or biased response of a judge.... This prophylactic vehicle is not provided if the jury pool is made up of only special segments of the populace or if large, distinctive groups are excluded from the pool. Community participation in the administration of the criminal law, moreover, is not only consistent with our democratic heritage but is also critical to public confidence in the fairness of the criminal justice system. 38 Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. at 530, 95 S.Ct. at 698 (citations omitted); Teague v. Lane, 820 F.2d 832, 838 (7th Cir.1987). When prospective jurors choose to serve near their homes they do not consider the broader policy of inclusiveness critical to the sixth amendment. A legislature or court, however, analyzing the jury selection system with objective debate and reflection, may establish a community that includes a cross section of diverse groups of people living within a reasonable distance from one another. 13