Opinion ID: 2164200
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: jury panel composition

Text: The initial jury panel consisted of fifty citizens, with nearly an equal number of male and female members. Prior to the trial, twenty-six members of the panel were excused by the presiding judge. At the commencement of defendant's trial, the panel consisted of seven men and nineteen women. The jury selected to hear the case consisted of three men and nine women, according to the defendant's brief. The state argues that the defendant must prove an intentional and purposeful discrimination against an identifiable community group in order to succeed in his challenge of the jury array. In support of its position, the state relies upon this court's decision in State v. Plenty Horse, 1971, 85 S.D. 401, 184 N.W.2d 654. Plenty Horse was based upon the Fourteenth Amendment and applied the standard first enunciated in Strauder v. West Virginia, 1880, 100 U.S. 303, 25 L.Ed. 664, that a criminal defendant is denied equal protection of the law if, as a result of purposeful discrimination, members of his race are excluded from jury duty. However, since Plenty Horse, the United States Supreme Court has decided Peters v. Kiff, 1972, 407 U.S. 493, 92 S.Ct. 2163, 33 L.Ed.2d 83, and Taylor v. Louisiana, 1975, 419 U.S. 522, 95 S.Ct. 692, 42 L.Ed.2d 690. These cases hold that the Sixth Amendment, as applied to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment, requires that all state petit juries must be selected at random from a fair cross-section of the community. The South Dakota legislature had adopted a statute which provides a similar requirement: It is the policy of the state of South Dakota that all litigants in the courts of this state entitled to trial by jury shall have the right to grand and petit juries selected at random from a fair cross-section of the community in the municipality, district or county where the court convenes.    SDCL 16-13-10.1. It is apparent that the burden is now upon the judiciary, not only to prevent purposeful discrimination against minorities but to insure that all identifiable groups in the community are fairly represented on jury panels. In Taylor, the fair cross-section requirement was held violated where women, who composed fifty-three percent of the community, made up only ten percent of the jury wheel and were not represented on the jury venire. It is not important whether the under-representation is purposeful or not, nor whether it arose from the selection of the jury panel or after through the granting of statutory exemptions or excuses. In United States v. Armsbury, 1976, D.C.Or., 408 F.Supp. 1130, a case cited by the state, the federal district judge stated: Even if these excuses (for extreme inconvenience and undue hardship) do result in the underrepresentation of certain cognizable groups, the statutory authority to grant them is not unconstitutional. Whether exemptions based on excuse are constitutional or not will depend on each excuse. If the excuse reflects a rational accommodation between the community's need for jurors and its need for uninterrupted professional or other important services, then it is constitutional.       (However), if a substantial threat is posed to the representative nature of the jury pool because of constitutionally granted excuses, then supplemental names must be added to correct any gross imbalance. 408 F.Supp. at 1135. (emphasis added) Although the United States Supreme Court has not indicated what percentage of underrepresentation on a single panel would constitute a violation of the fair cross-section requirement, it appears that an absolute percentage difference of fifteen percent or more would require supplementation of the jury panel. See United States v. Test, 1976, 10 Cir., 550 F.2d 577; Foster v. Sparks, 1975, 5 Cir., 506 F.2d 805. [1] The defendant concludes that a jury panel of seven men and nineteen women (a 27% composition of males) violates the fair cross-section requirement. To do so, he assumes, without proof, that men comprise fifty percent of the population of Stanley County. The underrepresentation would be an absolute percentage difference of twenty-three percent (i. e., 50%-27%=23%). If those were the final figures, we assume that the panel would not contain a fair representation of men and would require supplementation. However, after the defendant made his objection to the jury panel composition, a second panel was called. When or for what purpose it was called does not appear in the settled record. The composition of the second panel does not appear in the settled record, nor was any further challenge of the jury panels made after it was called. The record was settled without a transcript of the voir dire proceedings or the clerk's juror records. As has been stated before, the settled record is the sole evidence of the trial court's proceedings, Boettcher v. Thompson, 21 S.D. 169, 110 N.W. 108, and it is the obligation of the parties to see that the settled record contains all matters necessary for the disposition of the issues raised on appeal. Belcher v. Spillman, 1975, 28 Ill.App.3d 973, 329 N.E.2d 550. The defendant's failure to include in the settled record the entire voir dire proceedings leaves this court in a position of speculating as to the composition of the two combined jury panels. The defendant would have us presume that because the petit jury selected to try this case was composed of three men and nine women, the second jury panel suffered from the same underrepresentation of men. It was stated in Taylor, supra: It should also be emphasized that in holding that petit juries must be drawn from a source fairly representative of the community we impose no requirement that petit juries actually chosen must mirror the community and reflect the various distinctive groups in the population.  419 U.S. at 538, 95 S.Ct. at 702, 42 L.Ed.2d at 702-703. We therefore refuse to presume, because the petit jury members were disproportionately women, that the source was not a fair cross-section of the community. State v. Tucker, 1978, 118 Ariz. 76, 574 P.2d 1295. If we draw any presumption from an incomplete settled record, the presumption is that the trial court acted properly. Schurman v. Schurman, 60 S.D. 489, 245 N.W. 39; LaPlaca v. Gilbert and Wolf, Inc., 1976, 37 Ill.App.3d 259, 345 N.E.2d 774. In the absence of any evidence in the settled record to the contrary, we presume that the trial court acted correctly and that the second panel was called to correct the underrepresentation of males on the jury panel.