Opinion ID: 450586
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Supreme Court's Exercise of Its Supervisory Power

Text: 9 The so-called supervisory power doctrine was articulated formally over four decades ago in McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332, 63 S.Ct. 608, 87 L.Ed. 819 (1943), 1 and has been interpreted to permit federal courts 2 to formulate procedural rules not specifically required by the Constitution or federal statutes. United States v. Hasting, 461 U.S. 499, 505, 103 S.Ct. 1974, 1978, 76 L.Ed.2d 96 (1983). McNabb involved a prosecution for the murder of a federal agent. A failure by the arresting officers to follow proper detention and interrogation procedures led the Court to reverse the convictions. The Supreme Court rested its decision upon its supervisory power over the lower federal courts. Initially, the Court recognized that: 10 while the power of [the] Court to undo convictions in state courts is limited to the enforcement of those fundamental principles of liberty and justice ... which are secured by the Fourteenth Amendment, the scope of [the Court's] reviewing power over convictions brought ... from the federal courts is not confined to ascertainment of Constitutional validity. 11 Id. 318 U.S. at 340, 63 S.Ct. at 642. 3 Judicial supervision of the administration of criminal justice in the federal courts, the Court reasoned, implies the duty of establishing and maintaining civilized standards of procedure and evidence. Such standards are not satisfied merely by observance of those minimal historic safeguards for securing trial by reason which are summarized as 'due process of law' and below which we reach what is really trial by force. Id. In reversing the defendant's convictions, the Court announced the duty of courts as agencies of justice and custodians of liberty to preserve the integrity of the judicial process and guard against practices employed in cases such as McNabb. Id. at 347, 63 S.Ct. at 616. 12 Subsequent to McNabb, the Supreme Court has repeatedly exercised its supervisory power over lower federal courts in a wide variety of cases to reverse a conviction which was supported by false evidence, Mesarosh v. United States, 352 U.S. 1, 14, 77 S.Ct. 1, 8, 1 L.Ed.2d 1 (1956); Communist Party of the United States v. Subversive Activities Control Board, 351 U.S. 115, 125, 76 S.Ct. 663, 668, 100 L.Ed. 1003 (1956), to curtail improper practices by federal attorneys, United States v. Hale, 422 U.S. 171, 180 & n. 7, 95 S.Ct. 2133, 2138 & n. 7, 45 L.Ed.2d 99 (1975); Grunewald v. United States, 353 U.S. 391, 422 & 424, 77 S.Ct. 963, 983 & 984, 1 L.Ed.2d 931 (1957); Jencks v. United States, 353 U.S. 657, 668 & 672, 77 S.Ct. 1007, 1013 & 1015, 1 L.Ed.2d 1103 (1957); Roviaro v. United States, 353 U.S. 53, 60, 77 S.Ct. 623, 627, 1 L.Ed.2d 639 (1957), to suppress evidence government agents gained through misconduct, Mallory v. United States, 354 U.S. 449, 453 & 455, 77 S.Ct. 1356, 1358 & 1359, 1 L.Ed.2d 1479 (1957); Rea v. United States, 350 U.S. 214, 217, 76 S.Ct. 292, 294, 100 L.Ed. 233 (1956); Upshaw v. United States, 335 U.S. 410, 412 & 414 n. 2, 69 S.Ct. 170, 171 & 172 n. 2, 93 L.Ed. 100 (1948), to preserve a criminal contemner's right to a jury trial, Cheff v. Schnackenberg, 384 U.S. 373, 380, 86 S.Ct. 1523, 1526, 16 L.Ed.2d 629 (1966), or to protect the defendant from an overzealous district court judge, Offutt v. United States, 348 U.S. 11, 13, 75 S.Ct. 11, 13, 99 L.Ed. 11 (1954). 13 In cases relevant to the case before us, the Supreme Court has invoked the supervisory power doctrine to protect the integrity of the juries. Long before the Supreme Court decided Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 529 & 538, 95 S.Ct. 692, 697 & 701, 42 L.Ed.2d 690 (1975), which held that the Sixth Amendment precluded the exclusion of members of distinctive groups of the community from the venires from which the jurys are drawn, the Court applied the supervisory power doctrine in both civil and criminal cases to prevent the systematic exclusion from jury service of members of distinctive groups of the community. In Thiel v. Southern Pacific Co., 328 U.S. 217, 66 S.Ct. 984, 90 L.Ed. 1181 (1946), a diversity case, the jury commissioner intentionally excluded from the petit jury lists all persons earning a daily wage. At trial, the plaintiff moved to strike the jury panel. The district court denied the motion, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed. Citing McNabb, the Court invoked its supervisory authority and reversed, reasoning that [j]ury competence is an individual matter rather than a group or class matter ... [and to] disregard [that fact] ... open[s] the door to class distinctions and discriminations which are abhorrent to the democratic ideals of trial by jury. Id. at 220, 66 S.Ct. at 985. The Court ultimately concluded that the blanket exclusion of all daily wage earners ... must be counted among those tendencies which undermine and weaken the institution of jury trial. Id. at 224, 66 S.Ct. at 987. Later that year the Court decided Ballard v. United States, 329 U.S. 187, 67 S.Ct. 261, 91 L.Ed. 181 (1946). Ballard involved the exclusion of women from the grand and petit jury lists in the federal courts in California. The Court denounced the practice of excluding women from jury service and found that the practice deprive[d] the jury system of the broad base it was designed by Congress to have in our democratic society, and operated  'to destroy the basic democracy and classlessness of jury personnel.'  Id. at 195, 67 S.Ct. at 265. Again the Court relied upon McNabb and employed the supervisory power doctrine to reverse the defendant's conviction. 14 Thiel and Ballard are important for two reasons. First, they illustrate the applicability and scope of the supervisory power doctrine. More important, however, they emphasize the unifying premise in all of the supervisory power cases--that although the doctrine operates to vindicate a defendant's rights in an individual case, it is designed and invoked primarily to preserve the integrity of the judicial system. 15