Opinion ID: 2182678
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: A. Federal Case Law

Text: At the federal level, the development of voir dire with respect to the issue of race began in Aldridge v. United States, 283 U.S. 308, 51 S.Ct. 470, 75 L.Ed. 1054 (1931). In that capital case, the Court reversed the conviction by a white jury of an African-American man, who had been found guilty of shooting a white police officer, because the trial court had refused the defendant's request to propound a question relative to racial prejudice. Id. at 310, 51 S.Ct. at 471, 75 L.Ed. at 1056. Speaking in the language of its time, the Court reasoned that: But the question is not as to the civil privileges of the negro [such as serving on juries, permitted at that time in the District of Columbia], or as to the dominant sentiment of the community and the general absence [therein] of any disqualifying prejudice, but as to the bias of the particular jurors who are to try the accused.... [I]f any one of them was shown to entertain a prejudice which would preclude his rendering a fair verdict, a gross injustice would be perpetrated in allowing him to sit. Despite the privileges accorded to the negro, we do not think that it can be said that the possibility of such prejudice is so remote as to justify the risk in forbidding the inquiry. Id. at 314, 51 S.Ct. at 473, 75 L.Ed. at 1058 (footnote omitted). Thus, the essential demands of fairness required the trial court to propound the requested question in light of the non-remote possibility of disqualifying prejudice in the individual members of the jury. Id. at 310, 51 S.Ct. at 471, 75 L.Ed. at 1056. In Ham v. South Carolina, 409 U.S. 524, 93 S.Ct. 848, 35 L.Ed.2d 46 (1973), the Court, noting that Aldridge was not expressly grounded upon any constitutional requirement, first addressed a requested, race-oriented voir dire question as a constitutional issue. Id. at 526, 93 S.Ct. at 850, 35 L.Ed.2d at 50. In that case, a South Carolina jury convicted an African-American man of possession of marijuana; the defendant, who asserted that he had been framed by the police in retaliation for his civil rights activity, requested two voir dire questions that sought to elicit any possible racial prejudice against Negroes. Id. at 525, 93 S.Ct. at 850, 35 L.Ed.2d at 49. The trial judge refused to propound these questions on the ground that this issue was covered by more general questions. [1] The Supreme Court reversed. Noting that one purpose of the Due Process Clause is, in the language of Aldridge, to insure these `essential demands of fairness,'  and that the Fourteenth Amendment was [adopted] to prohibit the States from invidiously discriminating on the basis of race, the Court held that constitutional due process requires that under the facts shown by this record the petitioner be permitted to have jurors interrogated on the issue of racial bias. Id. at 526-27, 93 S.Ct. at 850, 35 L.Ed.2d at 50. By reversing the conviction, the Court indicated that, despite its recognition of a trial judge's broad discretion as to the number and form of voir dire questions, the more general questions propounded by the South Carolina trial court failed adequately to address the issue of racial bias. Three years later, the United States Supreme Court limited the reach of Ham to cases in which the circumstances of the crime suggest a significant likelihood that racial prejudice might infect [a defendant's] trial. Ristaino v. Ross, 424 U.S. 589, 598, 96 S.Ct. 1017, 1022, 47 L.Ed.2d 258, 265 (1976). In Ristaino, the Court upheld the conviction of an African-American defendant for the assault and battery and armed robbery of a white security guard. The trial judge had propounded general questions on bias, which resulted in the elimination of one veniremember for racial prejudice, but had denied the defendant's request that the venire be questioned specifically about racial prejudice. Id. at 590, 96 S.Ct. at 1018, 47 L.Ed.2d at 261. The Court asserted that Ham did not announce a requirement of universal applicability, but instead applies when under all of the circumstances presented there [is] a constitutionally significant likelihood that, absent questioning about racial prejudice, the jurors would not be as `indifferent as [they stand] unsworne.' Id. at 596, 96 S.Ct. at 1021, 47 L.Ed.2d at 264 (alteration in original) (quoting Coke on Littleton 155b (19th ed. 1832)). By contrast to Ham, which involved a civil rights worker whose defense of police retaliation was likely to intensify any prejudice that individual members of the jury might harbor, Ristaino involved [t]he mere fact that the victim of the crimes alleged was a white man and the defendants were Negroes. Id. at 597, 597, 96 S.Ct. at 1021, 1022, 47 L.Ed.2d at 264, 265. According to the Ristaino Court, this fact was not sufficient to require, as a constitutional matter, that a requested voir dire question on the issue of racial bias be propounded to the venire panel. Despite the assertion that Ham had not announced a rule of universal applicability, the Ristaino Court's reasoning indicated a narrowing of precedent. Ham articulated the principle that, if a juror is racially biased, then the jury's decision cannot be impartial. This principle implies that a requested, racially specific voir dire question is warranted, so long as there is a non-remote possibility that a juror could be biased, regardless of the circumstances of the case. By contrast, Ristaino 's decision that a trial judge is required to grant a racially specific voir dire question only under special circumstances implies that a juror could harbor prejudice, but that this prejudice would only become operative if the facts of the case were likely to intensify that prejudice. In other words, the Ristaino Court viewed racial prejudice as a latent attitude that becomes effective only under particular, racially-charged circumstances. [2] In 1981, as a matter of federal common law, a plurality of the United States Supreme Court opined that a voir dire question directed specifically at racial bias should be required in certain circumstances in which such an inquiry is not constitutionally mandated. Rosales-Lopez v. United States, 451 U.S. 182, 190, 101 S.Ct. 1629, 1635, 68 L.Ed.2d 22, 30 (1981) (plurality opinion). [3] In that case, the Court upheld the conviction of a man of Mexican descent for illegally transporting aliens across the United States border. The trial court had refused the defendant's request to ask prospective jurors if they would `consider the race or Mexican descent of [the defendant] in [their] evaluation of this case.' Id. at 185, 101 S.Ct. at 1633, 68 L.Ed.2d at 26. Although the indications of the likelihood of racial or ethnic prejudice were not substantial enough to amount to an unconstitutional abuse of discretion, id. at 190, 101 S.Ct. at 1635, 68 L.Ed.2d at 29, the plurality would require the voir dire question as a matter of federal common law when there is a `reasonable possibility' that racial prejudice would influence the jury. Id. at 192, 101 S.Ct. at 1636, 68 L.Ed.2d at 31. The plurality noted that this is always so when a violent interracial crime is involved, but that it was not so in the case of the victimless crime[ ][of] aiding members of [the defendant's] own ethnic group to gain illegal entry into the United States. Id. The plurality seemed to reject a rule of per se harmful error on the ground that determining the nonconstitutional standard of mandatory voir dire questions involv[es] the [issue of the] appearance of justice in the federal courts, and that requiring an inquiry in every case is likely to create the impression `that justice in a court of law may turn upon the pigmentation of skin [or] the accident of birth.' Id. at 190, 101 S.Ct. at 1635, 68 L.Ed.2d at 30 (last alteration in original) (quoting Ristaino, 424 U.S. at 596 n. 8, 96 S.Ct. at 1021 n. 8, 47 L.Ed.2d at 264 n. 8). In summary, under current federal law, a defendant has a Fourteenth Amendment right to have a trial court propound a requested voir dire question, specifically directed to uncovering racial bias, if the case involves special circumstances, of the sort in Ham, in which racial issues [are] `inextricably bound up with the conduct of the trial.' Rosales-Lopez, 451 U.S. at 189, 101 S.Ct. at 1635, 68 L.Ed.2d at 29 (quoting Ristaino, 424 U.S. at 597, 96 S.Ct. at 1021, 47 L.Ed.2d at 264). Moreover, a defendant has a nonconstitutional right in a federal criminal trial to have such a question propounded when there is a `reasonable possibility' that racial prejudice would influence the jury. Id. at 192, 101 S.Ct. at 1636, 68 L.Ed.2d at 31.