Opinion ID: 342459
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Substantiality of the Statutory Violation

Text: 22 Moreover, this failure to comply with the Act must be seen as substantial, sufficient ground under § 1867(a) to dismiss the indictment. This court has recently had occasion to elaborate on § 1867's substantial failure to comply test. In United States v. Davis, 546 F.2d 583, 589, 5th Cir., 1977, we said the following:Determining the substantial compliance question requires that the alleged violations of the Act be weighed against the goals of the statute. The major policy of the Act is that juries shall be 'selected at random from a fair cross section of the community.' 28 U.S.C. § 1861. Discrimination is prohibited in the selection process. 23 (emphasis added). Otherwise technical violations of the statute constitute substantial failure to comply when they affect the random nature or objectivity of the selection process. 24 That the introduction of personal predilections of prospective jurors affects the random nature of the selection process cannot be gainsaid. Surely a district would be in substantial violation of the statute if it selected all its jurors by randomly drawing names from the qualified jury wheel and allowing those selected to opt in or out at will. Limiting such a policy to emergency shortages does not mitigate its nonrandom nature. 25 We need not speculate as to what sort of biases will be reflected in a jury chosen on the basis of its members' willingness to depart from their daily business and serve as jurors. It is enough to recognize that a substantial variable, not contemplated by the Act's few, narrow categories of qualifications, exemptions, and excuses, has confounded the selection process. 6 26 The fact that the volunteers on appellant's jury were randomly selected without regard to personal convenience during the prior month is of no moment. Nonrandom selection of a subgroup from a randomly selected group does not make for a randomly selected subgroup. Former purity cannot randomize what has become unrandom. Section 1866(f) requires that emergency jurors be randomly selected. There is no suggestion in that subsection that Congress intended to allow greater play for the prospects' personal preferences in this aspect of jury selection than in any other. 27 A litigant need not show prejudice to establish a substantial failure to comply with the Act. Congress deleted just such a requirement from the bill presented to the conference committee. See H.R.Rep. No. 1076, 90th Cong., 2d Sess. (1968), reprinted in 1968 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News, pp. 1792, 1806. Moreover, when a statutory violation directly affects the random nature of the selection process, there is no need to show that the violation tended to exclude some cognizable group from that process. 7 Congress did not simply outlaw certain disparities in representation of certain groups on juries; it designed a procedure of random selection to ensure that no such disparities would arise. A departure from the statutory scheme that directly affects the random nature of selection establishes a substantial violation independently of the departure's consequences in a particular case. 28 Providing prospective jurors with complete discretion whether or not to serve negates the statutory mandate of random selection. The practice of the district court amounted to a substantial failure to comply with the Act. Accordingly, had appellant properly preserved his objection to the practice, he would clearly have been entitled to relief.