Opinion ID: 395139
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Right to a Properly Functioning Jury

Text: 29 Relying on Ballew v. Georgia, 435 U.S. 223, 98 S.Ct. 1029, 55 L.Ed.2d 234 (1978), Smith argues that the process of death qualification has the same damaging effects condemned as a violation of sixth and fourteenth amendment interests in Ballew. In that case the Supreme Court concluded that a state criminal trial to a jury of only five persons deprived the accused of the jury trial right guaranteed by the sixth and fourteenth amendments. The Court's conclusion rested on empirical evidence suggesting that the smaller size of the jury had detrimental effects on group deliberation, on the accuracy and consistency of results, and on the representation of minority viewpoints in jury decisionmaking. Id. at 232-38, 98 S.Ct. at 1035-38. By analogy Smith contends that death qualification is unconstitutional because it limits the attitudinal perspectives represented on the jury, thereby inhibiting the counterbalancing of biases during the deliberative process, 27 and excludes a significant minority viewpoint. 28 30 Smith's analogy to Ballew is inappropriate. The Supreme Court's concern in Ballew focused on the effect of size on the proper functioning of the jury. The Court's task was that of simply drawing a line, of setting a constitutional minimum for the size of juries in nonpetty criminal cases. See Ballew v. Georgia, 435 U.S. at 245-46, 98 S.Ct. at 1041-42. (Powell, J., concurring) ((T)he line between five- and six-member juries is difficult to justify, but a line has to be drawn somewhere if the substance of jury trial is to be preserved.). Thus the Court limited its focus to this question. It did not purport to establish, as Smith would have us accept, a sweeping constitutional rule stating that factors which, considered individually, do not infringe an accused's sixth and fourteenth amendment rights may effect, when viewed in the aggregate, a violation of those rights. The Court in Ballew was not inviting defendants to allege as many negative factors as possible with the hope of reaching the threshold level for a sixth amendment violation. Moreover, the analogy to Ballew is faulty because Smith is concerned with the particular attitudinal composition of the jury and seeks to require the inclusion of a particular viewpoint i.e., the view of those irrevocably opposed to the death penalty on any jury that determines his guilt or innocence. So phrased, Smith's argument manifests itself as simply another way of claiming that the jury which convicted him was not fairly representative of the community. We have considered and rejected this claim above. 29 31 Having examined each aspect of Smith's constitutional attack on the exclusion of veniremen irrevocably opposed to the death penalty, we conclude that Smith's jury was constitutionally composed. We are not prepared to nullify Witherspoon by holding that the death qualification process approved therein violates the defendant's rights under the sixth and fourteenth amendments. 32