Opinion ID: 2360335
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Application of the Legal Principles

Text: Although we did not decide in Carle, supra, whether African Americans constitute a distinctive group under the first prong of the Duren test, the government concedes that African Americans are a distinctive group for the purposes of a fair-cross-section analysis. Other courts have determined that African Americans are unquestionably a `distinctive' group for the purposes of a fair-cross-section analysis. Royal, supra, 174 F.3d at 6 (citing United States v. Hafen, 726 F.2d 21, 23 (1st Cir.1984)) (other citation omitted). See also Ohio v. Jackson, 107 Ohio St.3d 53, 836 N.E.2d 1173, 1192 (Ohio 2005). As for the second Duren prong, we conclude that appellants failed to establish that the representation of [African Americans] from which [District of Columbia] juries are selected is not fair and reasonable in relation to the number of such persons in the community. Duren, supra, 439 U.S. at 364, 99 S.Ct. 664. To satisfy the second prong, appellants must demonstrate the percentage of the community made up of the group alleged to be underrepresented, [because] this is the conceptual benchmark for the Sixth Amendment fair-cross-section requirement. Id. Moreover, courts generally rely on two concepts or measures (there are others) to determine whether the distinctive groups' representation is fair and reasonable in relation to their representation in the community . . .: absolute and comparative disparity. [3] United States v. Orange, 447 F.3d 792, 798 (10th Cir.2006) (citations omitted); see also Peter A. Detre, Note, A Proposal for Measuring Underrepresentation in the Composition of the Jury Wheel, 103 Yale L.J.1913, 1917-20 (1994). These measures of fair and reasonable representation require statistical data. In Duren, the appellant proffered statistics showing the actual percentage of women in the community. Duren, supra, 439 U.S. at 364-65, 99 S.Ct. 664. See also Thomas v. Borg, 159 F.3d 1147, 1150 (9th Cir.1998), cert. denied, 526 U.S. 1055, 119 S.Ct. 1365, 143 L.Ed.2d 526 (1999) (noting that the second prong of Duren requires proof, typically statistical data to establish the percentage of the community purported to be made up of the underrepresented group). Similarly, in Obregon v. United States, a case challenging the jury selection process on the basis that it excluded people with Spanish surnames, the appellant offered census figures and expert testimony to establish the number of people in the District of Columbia who were of Hispanic origin. 423 A.2d 200, 202 n. 3 (D.C.1980). But here, as the government argues, appellants presented no evidence to the trial court regarding the demographic makeup of the District of Columbia. Mr. Kipette states, for the first time on appeal, that 60% of the District's population is comprised of African Americans according to the most recent census data, but that statistic alone is inadequate to satisfy Duren's second prong. At trial, both Mr. Diggs and Mr. Kipette merely argued that there were too few African American jurors on the panel. Mr. Diggs' original objection asserted that the court was left with a panel that's probably about ninety percent composed of white males and females and only about five percent composed of black individuals of either gender, and he moved for a new panel based upon the breakdown of demographics that we presently have. In joining Mr. Diggs' motion for a new panel, Mr. Kipette objected for the first time on Sixth Amendment grounds by stating that thirty-six. . . of the [original sixty-one] panel members were white and that this was not a fair cross section of any community in D.C. Later, Mr. Diggs renewed his objection to the panel, stating that [the] jury panel [was] disproportionately representative of the white race of the population and not uniformly or more reflective of the community in general. In their brief, appellants belatedly attempt to show a statistical disparity of 22 percent between the 38 percent of the panel that was African American and the 60 percent of the population of the District of Columbia, using the government's assessment of the racial breakdown of the jury panel, which was that 23 of 60 panel members were African American. But even assuming that this limited statistical picture could satisfy the second Duren prong, there are two problems. First, that statistical disparity picture was not presented to the trial court, and second, it could not satisfy the third Duren prong. The third Duren prong requires appellants to demonstrate that this underrepresentation [of the distinctive group in the community] is due to systematic exclusion of the group in the jury selection process. Duren, supra, 439 U.S. at 364, 99 S.Ct. 664. A showing of systematic exclusion must be based on more than statistical evidence relating to the jury pool in one case. As the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts declared: A defendant must do more than assess a small subsection of the venire present on a particular day in order to show that the group allegedly discriminated against is not fairly and reasonably represented in the venires in relation to its proportion of the community. A defendant must present evidence of a statistically significant sample, usually requiring analysis of the composition of past venires. Arriaga, supra, 781 N.E.2d at 1263-64 (citations omitted); see also United States v. Hill, 197 F.3d 436, 445 (This circuit and others have repeatedly emphasized that. . . evidence of a discrepancy on a single venire panel, is insufficient to demonstrate systematic exclusion.) (citing United States v. DeFries, 327 U.S.App.D.C. 181, 189, 129 F.3d 1293, 1301 (1997) (per curiam)); Phea v. Benson, 95 F.3d 660, 662 (8th Cir.1996); United States v. Ruiz-Castro, 92 F.3d 1519, 1527 (10th Cir.1996)) (other citation omitted). Furthermore, a statistical showing alone, without some analysis of the particular system involved, is [in]sufficient to prove systematic exclusion. Obregon, supra, 423 A.2d at 206; see also Harlee v. District of Columbia, 558 A.2d 351, 353 (D.C.1989) (appellant fails to establish the third Duren prong where record is devoid of any evidence, statistical or otherwise, showing that the alleged underrepresentation . . . was due to . . . systematic exclusion from the District's random selection process.). See also United States v. Rodriguez-Lara, 421 F.3d 932, 945 (9th Cir.2005) (appellant could not prevail on fair-cross-section challenge because hypothesis as to the cause of the underrepresentation, without evidence to support it fails to satisfy the third prong of Duren ). Appellants make some attempt to establish that African American representation on Monday jury panels in Superior Court is disproportionately low compared to their percentage of the population, and that African American representation on [their] jury, in particular, evinced a disparity that far exceeded the ten percent disparity that typically establishes underrepresentation in a jury venire. However, appellants presented no evidence in the trial court that African Americans were excluded regularly from Monday jury panels. In contrast, in Duren the appellant provided statistical proof of a discrepancy in every weekly venire for nearly a year. Duren, supra, 439 U.S. at 364-65, 99 S.Ct. 664. Here, appellants rely mainly on the trial court's remarks that there's a correlation between response to jury summons and people's economic status and their education level . . . that is skewed towards the white professionals . . . particularly on a Monday because most of the people who defer are put to a Monday. But, the trial court's mere conjecture about why panels might have more white jurors on Monday cannot establish systematic exclusion of African Americans from Monday jury pools. [4] Appellants in DeFries, supra, singled out a procedure used in the jury office which gave liberal hardship deferrals to whites in the jury pool and then recalled them en masse. They argued that under this procedure, white jurors were systematically underrepresented in the juror pool they received, and that [t]his disparity. . . is due in part to the fact that potential white jurors were more likely than nonwhites to obtain hardship deferrals of their jury service  at least half of the fifty-four deferrals in the jury pool used by the district court for the venire in appellants' trial were white. 327 U.S.App.D.C. at 187, 129 F.3d at 1299, 1300. Appellants presented more statistical data in the district court than Messers Kipette and Diggs introduced in the trial court in this case, but the federal appellate court, although believing that [t]he import of appellant['s] evidence is troubling, Id. at 189 n. 5, 129 F.3d at 1301 n. 5, nevertheless concluded that it was insufficient to establish systematic exclusion: Appellants contend that the disparity between the percentage of whites in their venire and the percentage of eligible white jurors in the District of Columbia suggests that whites are systematically excluded from juries in the district court. They point to the evidence that although whites comprise approximately one-third of the eligible jurors in the district, they comprised only 23% of the venire in their case. Yet appellants cannot show on the basis of this single instance of disparity that there has been a systematic exclusion of whites from the jury. Underrepresentation of a cognizable group in a single venire, without evidence of a greater pattern, is insufficient to establish the systematic exclusion of the group required by Duren. From a small sample size based on one venire it is difficult to determine whether the disparity is random or systematic. Id. at 189, 129 F.3d at 1301 (citing Duren, supra, 439 U.S. at 364, 99 S.Ct. 664 (other citations omitted)). The same can be said in this case. Simply put, although the allegations concerning hardship deferrals and the Monday composition of the jury pool are troubling, Id. at 189 n. 5, 129 F.3d at 1301 n. 5, appellants cannot prevail on their Sixth Amendment claim, because they presented insufficient evidence at trial to support it.