Opinion ID: 509516
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Propriety of Exclusion of Witherspoon-excludables from the Petit Jury

Text: 98 In Lockhart v. McCree, 476 U.S. 162, 106 S.Ct. 1758, 90 L.Ed.2d 137 (1986), the Supreme Court held that the United States Constitution does not prohibit the removal for cause, prior to the guilt phase of a bifurcated capital trial, of prospective jurors whose opposition to the death penalty is so strong that it would prevent or substantially impair the performance of their duties as jurors at the sentencing phase of the trial. Id. at 165, 106 S.Ct. at 1760. The Court rejected the defendant's contention that death qualification of the jury violated his right under the sixth and fourteenth amendments to an impartial jury selected from a representative cross section of the community. Id. at 173-77, 183-84, 106 S.Ct. at 1764-67, 1769-70. Harris has advanced many of the same arguments the Supreme Court expressly rejected in McCree. 99 As the Supreme Court recently noted, [t]here is no reason to revisit the issue whether social-science literature conclusively shows that 'death-qualified' juries are 'conviction-prone.'  Buchanan v. Kentucky, 483 U.S. ----, 107 S.Ct. 2906, 2913 n. 16, 97 L.Ed.2d 336 (1987). Just as it was assumed in McCree and Buchanan that the studies presented in those cases were both methodologically valid and adequate to establish that 'death qualification' in fact produces juries somewhat more 'conviction-prone' than 'non-death-qualified' juries, McCree, 476 U.S. at 173, 106 S.Ct. at 1764; Buchanan, 107 S.Ct. at 2913 n. 16, we make a similar assumption here concerning similar studies presented by Harris. 100 The Supreme Court's reasoning in McCree requires rejection of Harris' contention that death qualification violated his right to a jury selected from a representative cross-section of the community. The fair cross-section requirement does not apply to petit juries. The fair cross-section rule is limited to the method of summoning the venire panel from which the petit jury is selected. McCree, 476 U.S. at 173-74, 106 S.Ct. at 1764-65. No violation of the sixth amendment's fair cross-section requirement has been shown in this matter. 101 The analysis in McCree also forecloses Harris' claim that the removal of Witherspoon -excludables resulted in the selection of a conviction-prone jury. The Court in McCree stated that even though  'death qualification' in fact produces juries somewhat more 'conviction prone' than 'nondeath-qualified' juries.... the Constitution does not prohibit the States from 'death qualifying' juries in capital cases. 476 U.S. at 173, 106 S.Ct. at 1764. 102 Harris finally claims that death qualification denied him a jury capable of fulfilling functions contemplated by the right to a jury trial. Harris asserts that death qualification results in a jury which is less likely to overcome the biases of its members or to arrive at an accurate and objective result through the counterbalancing of the prejudices and proclivities of individual jurors. This argument is merely a restatement of Harris' fair cross-section argument. Accord Smith v. Balkcom, 660 F.2d 573, 584 & n. 29 (5th Cir. Unit B 1981) (defendant's claim that death qualification denies him his right to a properly functioning jury is simply another way of claiming that the jury which convicted him was not fairly representative of the community), modified, 671 F.2d 858 (5th Cir.1982) (per curiam). 103