Opinion ID: 356148
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Remedying The Remedy

Text: 12 It is clear that a significant disparity between the demographic patterns in a county and the relative percentages of each cognizable, distinct demographic group on the jury lists may warrant corrective action by a federal court, absent a countervailing explanation by the jury commission. Castaneda v. Partida, 1977, 430 U.S. 482, 494, 97 S.Ct. 1272, 51 L.Ed.2d 498, 510-11; Turner v. Fouche, 1970, 396 U.S. 346, 90 S.Ct. 532, 24 L.Ed.2d 567; Foster v. Sparks, 1975, 506 F.2d 805, 810; Broadway v. Culpepper, 5 Cir., 1971, 439 F.2d 1253; Preston v. Mandeville, 5 Cir., 1970, 428 F.2d 1392. The issue here is the degree of corrective action required. We have held that in injunctive cases the Court may exact from officials responsible for the construction of jury lists a high standard of comparability between demographic percentages and those of the jury list. Broadway v. Culpepper, supra, 439 F.2d at 1259; Foster v. Sparks, supra, 506 F.2d at 810. This high standard was not met in the present case. 13 The District Court Judge apparently based his approval of the revised lists on the premise that even if they would be inadequate to remedy intentional discrimination in jury selection, the plaintiffs had not proved that such intentional discrimination ever occurred. Rather, they had only presented a prima facie case of statistical underrepresentation. 13 We find that this is a distinction without a constitutional difference. The Supreme Court has recently clarified that evidence based solely on statistics is sufficient to establish a prima facie case of discriminatory purpose, without additional positive indicia of discrimination or evidence that the selection procedures followed provided an opportunity to discriminate. Castaneda v. Partida, supra, 430 U.S. at 494-95, 97 S.Ct. 1272. 14 In this case, the District Court found that the plaintiffs had succeeded in showing significant underrepresentation of blacks, and the defendants made no effort to rebut this prima facie case of discrimination. 15 Because the Court measured the adequacy of the revised lists to remedy the discrimination under an erroneous legal standard, we must reverse and remand. The defendants must take steps to produce a jury list in which the percentage of black jurors more nearly approaches the percentage of eligible blacks residing in the community. 14 The defendant jury commissioners urge that this result is inconsistent with Thompson v. Sheppard, 5 Cir., 1974, 490 F.2d 830, in which this Court approved a revised jury list as a constitutionally sufficient remedy for unconstitutionally composed jury lists in Dougherty County, Georgia. The jury commissioners in Thompson followed a similar procedure in revising the lists to that employed in this suit. However, several factors distinguish Thompson from the present case. The disparity between age eligible blacks in Dougherty County and those on the revised lists was 11%, as compared to a 17.34% disparity in the case before us. More important, the Court in Thompson stated that (t)he record is silent as to how much of this disparity was due to exemptions claimed, inability to deliver the questionnaires, and failure to return them. 490 F.2d at 832. In the present case, the record speaks directly to these points. Of 1,879 questionnaires returned as undeliverable, 1,230 were sent to blacks; of 2,545 unanswered questionnaires, 1,378 were sent to blacks. As a result, 2,608 blacks, or 46.8% of the age eligible black population in the county and 59.6% of all black registered voters were eliminated from possible inclusion on the jury roll. This compares to the 36.7% of the white registered voters similarly lost to the jury lists. We have held that a list only partly usable here, only 4,794 names out of 9,218 were effectively available is not a source reflecting the community from which a fair cross-section may be obtained unless it can be shown that the available population is comparable to the unusable remnant. Broadway v. Culpepper, supra, 439 F.2d at 1257. No such showing can be made here. 15 The jury commissioners made no attempt to follow up undelivered or unreturned questionnaires to minimize or reduce this disproportionate result. Until such procedures are implemented, the defendants will be unable to justify disparities remaining on a revised jury list. The Georgia Code provides that if the procedures used result in too wide a disparity, the defendants must find ways to supplement their sources of potential jurors' names. Ga.Code, § 59-106. We believe that a statutorily and constitutionally sufficient list for the future is unlikely to be produced unless an entirely new list is compiled, subject to the showing that it meets the stringent commands of the Constitution. Broadway v. Culpepper, supra, 493 F.2d 1253. At a minimum, this showing must demonstrate that the defendants added to the procedures previously employed steps to follow up on those whose questionnaires are not delivered and those who fail to return their questionnaires. 16 16 REVERSED and REMANDED.