Opinion ID: 1900957
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Jury Pool Challenge

Text: The sixth amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees a criminal defendant a trial by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, applies to state criminal trials through the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 149, 88 S.Ct. 1444, 1447, 20 L.Ed.2d 491 (1968). The right to an impartial jury trial includes the right to a petit jury drawn from a source fairly representative of the community. Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 538, 95 S.Ct. 692, 702, 42 L.Ed.2d 690 (1975). Taylor held that the exclusion of women from jury venires deprives a criminal defendant of his Sixth Amendment right to trial by an impartial jury drawn from a fair cross section of the community. 419 U.S. at 535-36, 95 S.Ct. at 700. Elaborating on the fair cross-section rule, the Supreme Court held in Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357, 99 S.Ct. 664, 58 L.Ed.2d 579 (1979), that a defendant has established a prima facie violation of the requirement when he has shown: (1) that the group alleged to be excluded is a distinctive group in the community; (2) that the representation of this group in venires from which juries are selected is not fair and reasonable in relation to the number of such persons in the community; and (3) that this underrepresentation is due to systematic exclusion of the group in the jury selection process. 439 U.S. at 364, 99 S.Ct. at 668. There is no requirement that the defendant be a member of the distinctive group allegedly excluded from jury venires, see Taylor, 419 U.S. at 526, 95 S.Ct. at 695, or that he show that any particular prejudice to him has resulted from the unlawful juror selection system, see id. at 538, 95 S.Ct. at 701 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting). The fair cross-section rule is designed in part to ensure [c]ommunity participation in the administration of the criminal laws, which is critical to public confidence in the fairness of the criminal justice system. Id. at 530, 95 S.Ct. at 698. [2] Using language similar to that of the Bill of Rights, our Maine Constitution gives a criminal defendant the right to an impartial trial . . . by a jury of the vicinity. Me.Const. art. I, § 6. In State v. Clapp, 335 A.2d 897 (Me.1975), we held that because the sixth amendment had been incorporated into the fourteenth amendment's due process clause, the federal fair cross-section requirement becomes automatically absorbed into the guarantee of jury trial embodied in Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution of Maine. 335 A.2d at 900. We reaffirmed the substantial identity of a defendant's rights under the state and the federal jury trial provisions in Anaya I, 438 A.2d at 895 n. 3, where we quoted Duren v. Missouri 's tripartite test for a prima facie violation of the fair cross-section requirement. It is that test, therefore, which we apply today to determine whether Linda Anaya has established a violation of her rights under either the federal or the state constitution. Because we conclude that she fails the first prong of the Duren test, we hold that the Superior Court was correct to deny her challenge. The three groups that Anaya identifies as being systematically underrepresented in Cumberland County jury pools are persons aged 18 through 24, persons with less than a high school education, and blue-collar workers. [3] In considering whether these groups are distinctive for purposes of a jury pool challenge, we are guided by a number of federal and state cases further refining the Supreme Court's concept of distinctiveness. United States v. Test, 550 F.2d 577 (10th Cir.1976), held that a group is not cognizable for purposes of a jury pool challenge unless it possesses: (1) . . . some quality or attribute which defines and limits the group; (2) a cohesiveness of attitudes or ideas or experience which distinguishes the group from the general social milieu; and (3) a community of interest which may not be represented by other segments of society. 550 F.2d at 591 (quoting United States v. Test, 399 F.Supp. 683, 689 (D.Colo.1975)). Stating virtually the same proposition in the negative, the Ninth Circuit has held that groups that have no internal cohesion, that are not viewed as an identifiable class by the general population, and whose members have diverse attitudes and characteristics which defy classification are not cognizable groups for jury challenge purposes. United States v. Kleifgen, 557 F.2d 1293, 1296 (9th Cir.1977). And the Indiana Supreme Court uses a shorthand formula, requiring a group to be distinct from the rest of society in a significant way, having interests which cannot be adequately represented by other members of the trial panel. Grassmyer v. State, 429 N.E.2d 248, 251 (Ind.1982). Certain groupssuch as those defined by race [4] or sex [5] are unquestionably distinctive. Ordinarily, however, a defendant must make a factual showing that the group or groups allegedly excluded from the jury pool are properly cognizable for purposes of the sixth amendment's fair cross-section requirement. Courts faced with claims similar to Anaya's have held overwhelmingly that groups defined by age, [6] by lack of education, [7] and by occupational status [8] cannot be considered distinctive absent proof of their limiting qualities, cohesiveness of experience, and commonality of interest in the community from which the challenged jury was drawn. [C]ognizability will necessarily vary with local conditions. United States v. Potter, 552 F.2d 901, 903 (9th Cir.1977). Whether a cognizable class exists within a community is a factual question to be answered in the context of the community. United States v. Abell, 552 F.Supp. 316, 324 (D.Me. 1982). See also Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475, 478-79, 74 S.Ct. 667, 670-71, 98 L.Ed. 866 (1953); State v. Clapp, 335 A.2d at 901. Linda Anaya has made virtually no showing that the young, the less well-educated, or blue-collar workers have any limiting qualities, cohesion of experience, or community of interest sufficient to set them apart from the general population of Cumberland County. The record in this case reveals only that Dr. McEwen, defendant's expert, testified very generally about the different perspectives of various groups. He said that the variables of [s]ex, age, income, occupation, educational level, race, religion, [and] . . . size and place of residence are useful to sociologists because they give some indication of different kinds of experiences and different social positions, different perspective on issues that are predictive of attitudes and values. He never spoke any more specifically than that of the effect of educational or occupational variables alone on a group's attitudes or experiences. Referring to groups defined by age, Dr. McEwen stated that average or typical views of the criminal justice system and of women's issues tend to vary according to age group. The sociologist never specified that the 18-to-24 age group tends to hold views on these subjects significantly different from the views of slightly older persons. Nor did he ever suggest that any of the three groups we are asked to declare distinctive is internally cohesive, is recognized as a separate class by others in the community, or has interests that cannot be adequately represented by other members of the public. In the absence of a more specific showing that Cumberland County's young people, less well-educated residents, and blue-collar workers possess any of the attributes of distinctiveness set forth in United States v. Test, we decline to hold those groups cognizable for purposes of a petit jury pool challenge. It is therefore unnecessary for us to consider whether Anaya's statistical evidence was sufficient to show that the representation of these three groups in the pool from which her jury was selected was not fair and reasonable or whether the claimed underrepresentation was due to systematic exclusion of the group[s] in the jury selection process.