Opinion ID: 2782391
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Fifth and Sixth Amendments and the JSSA

Text: We review de novo constitutional challenges to jury selection processes. United States v. Grisham, 63 F.3d 1074, 1077 (11th Cir. 1995). We also review de novo claims under the JSSA. United States v. Carmichael, 560 F.3d 1270, 1277– 79 (11th Cir. 2009).
To establish a Fifth Amendment equal protection violation in the jury selection context, a defendant must show “(1) that he or she is a member of a group capable of being singled out for discriminatory treatment, (2) that members of this group were substantially underrepresented on the venire, and (3) that the venire was selected under a practice providing an opportunity for discrimination.” Cunningham v. Zant, 928 F.2d 1006, 1013 (11th Cir. 1991). Dees did not present any data or argument to support the second element of his equal protection argument. Rather, he only asserts that the Northern Division has a higher proportion of African-Americans living within its area. It does not follow that African-Americans were underrepresented on the venire. Therefore, he failed to establish a prima facie case of a Fifth Amendment violation. See id.
4 Case: 14-11977 Date Filed: 02/26/2015 Page: 5 of 7 The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees a speedy and public trial in the state and district “where the crime was committed, but there is no constitutional right to trial within a division.” Betancourt, 734 F.2d at 756 (citing United States v. Anderson, 328 U.S. 699, 704, 705, 66 S. Ct. 1213, 1216, 1217 (1946)). The Supreme Court has explained that this requires “the selection of a petit jury from a representative cross section of the community.” Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 528, 95 S. Ct. 692, 697 (1975). The judicial district of the United States Courts satisfies the “district” and “community” requirements. See Grisham, 63 F.3d at 1079–80 (rejecting defendant’s argument that the Sixth Amendment requires a venire from the division where the crime occurred). To establish a prima facie violation of this constitutional requirement, the defendant 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. Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357, 364, 99 S. Ct. 664, 668 (1978). Failure to establish any one of these elements results in the failure of the entire Sixth Amendment claim. United States v. Pepe, 747 F.2d 632, 649 (11th Cir. 1984). To 5 Case: 14-11977 Date Filed: 02/26/2015 Page: 6 of 7 determine whether jury representation is fair and reasonable, we will only look to the “absolute disparity produced by the selection process,” which, in such cases, means there must be more than a ten percentage point disparity between the percentage of the group in the population and the percent of the group in the jury pool. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). The community to which the venires are compared is the district, not the division. See Grisham, 63 F.3d at 1079–80. Dees did not present below to the district court nor does he provide on appeal any data that would establish the second criterion for a prima facie violation of the Sixth Amendment fair cross-section requirement. See Pepe, 747 F.2d at 649.
The JSSA provides that “all litigants in Federal courts entitled to trial by jury shall have the right to grand and petit juries selected at random from a fair cross section of the community in the district or division wherein the court convenes.” 28 U.S.C. § 1861. For a violation of the JSSA to be substantial, and thus provide relief, it must frustrate one of the core principles underlying the statute, such as the fair cross-section principle. Carmichael, 560 F.3d at 1277. The standard for assessing a JSSA fair cross-section violation is the same as that used to determine a fair cross-section violation under the Sixth Amendment. United States v. Rodriguez, 776 F.2d 1509, 1510 n.1 (11th Cir. 1985). Therefore, because his Sixth Amendment claim fails, his JSSA claim also fails. 6 Case: 14-11977 Date Filed: 02/26/2015 Page: 7 of 7 AFFIRMED. 7