Opinion ID: 1267182
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the law and the trial court's order

Text: 1. This Court has addressed the issue of Hall County Hispanics and their representation in Hall County jury pools before. In Mobley v. State, 262 Ga. 808(2), 426 S.E.2d 150 (1993) and Mobley v. State, 265 Ga. 292(6), 455 S.E.2d 61 (1995), this Court affirmed the trial court's orders that Mobley had failed to prove that Hispanics in Hall County were a distinctive group or that they were underrepresented on the jury lists. The issue arose again in Morrow v. State, 272 Ga. 691(1), 532 S.E.2d 78 (2000). In Morrow, this Court outlined the three-part test to be used for determining the existence of a prima facie Sixth Amendment fair-cross-section violation, which is: (1) whether the group alleged to be excluded is a distinctive group in the community; (2) whether the representation of this group in jury pools is not fair and reasonable in relation to the number of such persons in the community; and (3) whether this underrepresentation is due to systematic exclusion of the group in the jury selection process. Morrow, supra at 692, 532 S.E.2d 78; Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357, 364(II), 99 S.Ct. 664, 58 L.Ed.2d 579 (1979); Bowen v. Kemp, 769 F.2d 672, 684 (11th Cir.1985). The defendant has the burden of proving a prima facie case of constitutional error in the composition of the challenged jury pool. Morrow, supra at 693, 532 S.E.2d 78; Berryhill v. Zant, 858 F.2d 633, 638 (11th Cir.1988). Morrow claimed that Hispanics were underrepresented on the grand and traverse jury lists created in the middle and late 1990's because the large influx of Hispanics into Hall County since 1990 had rendered racial/ethnic percentages in the 1990 Census obsolete. The jury lists must be based on the most recent census statistics for the county. Unified Appeal Procedure Rule II(C)(6)(b). Morrow argued that the trial court should have ordered the county to instead use population estimates derived from his test census of a small portion of the county and other estimates of Hispanics in Hall County, which allegedly showed much higher numbers of Hispanics. This Court affirmed the trial court's refusal to accept Morrow's statistics, finding them to be unreliable when compared to the more-comprehensive 1990 Census. Morrow, supra at 694-695, 532 S.E.2d 78. When using the 1990 Census numbers, the absolute disparity of Hispanics on the grand and traverse jury lists when compared with their percentage of the county population was less than 5% and therefore constitutional. See Morrow, supra at 695, 532 S.E.2d 78; Cook v. State, 255 Ga. 565(11), 340 S.E.2d 843 (1986) (As a general proposition, absolute disparities under 10% usually are sufficient to satisfy constitutional requirements.). This Court did not reach the question of whether the constitutional analysis was affected by evidence that most of the Hispanics in Hall County are not U.S. citizens and therefore ineligible for jury service. Morrow, supra; OCGA § 15-12-40.1. Smith challenged the grand and traverse jury lists on the same Sixth Amendment grounds as did Morrow. In Smith's case, he has been indicted by a grand jury drawn from a grand jury list created in March 2000 using the 1990 Census numbers. The 2000 Census numbers, showing an increased Hispanic population, were not available to the jury commission until March 2001, about eight months after Smith's indictment. After determining that Hall County Hispanics are a distinctive group, the trial court ruled, by following this Court's holding in Morrow, that the 1990 Census numbers used by the jury commission when creating the grand jury list were the only reliable population measurement then available, and the jury commission did not err by using them. Using 1990 Census numbers, the absolute disparity of Hispanics between their percentage of the county population and their representation on the grand jury list was within constitutional limits. Thus, the trial court refused to quash the indictment. The trial court viewed the traverse jury list differently. It determined that the 2000 Census numbers would be available to the jury commission when it compiles Smith's traverse jury list, and that the master trial jury list [1] had only 2.6% Hispanics [2] while the 2000 Census showed Hispanics over the age of 18 to be 17.1% of the over-18 county population. The trial court found the resulting absolute disparity of 14.5% to be unconstitutional. With regard to the third prong of the Sixth Amendment test, whether the underrepresentation was due to systematic exclusion of Hispanics in the jury selection process, the trial court found the most compelling evidence of systematic exclusion was that Hispanics were not tracked as a separate category on the traverse jury list or recorded on jury application and voter registration forms; historically, there were only identity blocks for male, female, white, black, and other. The trial court acknowledged that the jury commissioners had tried to recruit more Hispanics for the jury list but found these efforts insufficient to preclude a finding of systematic exclusion. Therefore, the trial court found that Smith had proven a prima facie Sixth Amendment fair-cross-section violation. Although evidence from both parties showed that most Hall County Hispanics are not U.S. citizens, and therefore ineligible for jury service, the trial court faulted the State for failing to provide reliable citizenship numbers to rebut Smith's prima facie case. The trial court also found that the State could have rebutted Smith's prima facie case by presenting more evidence that the jury commission had tried to increase the number of Hispanics on the jury list but failed due to lack-of-citizenship problems. The trial court granted Smith's challenge to the traverse jury list and ordered the jury commission to recompile a traverse jury list that accurately reflected Hall County's population.