Opinion ID: 284440
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Grand Jury

Text: 8 The sole point briefed by appellants Bennett and Stanton concerns their challenge to the method of grand jury selection in the Southern District of New York. With the approval of the trial judge it was stipulated that similar motions made before Judge Tyler in United States v. Leonetti, 291 F.Supp. 461 (S.D.N.Y.1968), would be considered to have been made here, and that his decision thereon would be deemed the decision in this case as well. In a careful opinion Judge Tyler overruled the challenge. The basic contention of the movants was that the jury selection system 5 operated unfairly to minimize participation by black and Puerto Rican citizens and, generally, by the urban poor. Conceding that Gross disparities in the representation of any identifiable group in the community of course serve to call scrutiny to the system, the judge concluded that the disparities relied upon by movants are almost completely the product of the hardship excuse procedures. He found also that the attack based on the long discarded practice of choosing grand jurors by relying in part on impermissible sources such as recommendations of the Grand Jury Association, the Social Register, and real estate listings, as against voter registration lists, had much less force today than when it was rejected years ago in United States v. Dennis, 183 F. 2d 201, 218 (2 Cir. 1950), aff'd, 341 U.S. 494, 71 S.Ct. 857, 95 L.Ed. 1137 (1951), and, more recently, in United States v. Van Allen, 208 F.Supp. 331 (S.D.N.Y.1962), aff'd sub nom. United States v. Kelly, 349 F.2d 720, 777-779 (2 Cir. 1965), cert. denied, 384 U.S. 947, 86 S.Ct. 1467, 16 L.Ed.2d 544 (1966). See also United States v. Flynn, 216 F. 2d 354, 385-386 (2 Cir. 1954), cert. denied, 348 U.S. 909, 75 S.Ct. 295, 99 L.Ed. 713 (1955). Granting, as Judge Tyler did, that the Jury Selection and Service Act of 1968, 82 Stat. 53, 28 U.S.C. §§ 1861-1867, will produce more thoroughly representative juries in the Southern District of New York, we find no evidence of invidious discrimination sufficient to require invalidation of this indictment. 9