Opinion ID: 2427354
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Right to Jury Selected from Fair-Cross Section of the Community

Text: González and Rosario argue, for the first time on appeal, that they were deprived of their Sixth Amendment right to a trial before a jury representing a fair cross-section of the community. They argue that the jury that convicted them was not drawn from a fair cross section of the community, as it was an English-speaking, white-collar, and highly professionally oriented group drawn from a universe of less than 16% of their peers. The local plan for the District of Puerto Rico requires that jurors be sufficiently proficient in English to render satisfactory jury service, see, e.g., United States v. Candelaria-Silva, 166 F.3d 19, 29-30 (1st Cir.1999), and yet, according to Defendants, eighty percent of Puerto Rico residents have little command of English. (The eighty percent figure is based on certain U.S. census surveys cited in Defendants' briefs on appeal.) Because this contention, at least as it pertained to the composition of the trial jury, was not raised in the district court, it is subject to review only for plain error. Even if it were properly preserved for review, Defendants' contention is foreclosed by our precedents, which have repeatedly upheld the English proficiency requirement against such challenges in Puerto Rico district court. See United States v. Rodríguez-Lozada, 558 F.3d 29, 38 (1st Cir.2009) (concluding that the English proficiency requirement was justified by the overwhelming national interest served by the use of English in a United States court (quoting United States v. González-Vélez, 466 F.3d 27, 40 (1st Cir. 2006))); United States v. Dubón-Otero, 292 F.3d 1, 17 (1st Cir.2002). Defendants offer no persuasive reason for reconsidering our prior rulings.