Opinion ID: 688565
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: constitutionality of the venire

Text: 50 Quinones challenges his conviction based on the composition of his grand and petit juries. Quinones argues that because the district court used voter registration lists as the only source of grand and petit jurors, this resulted in the underrepresentation of Hispanics. Quinones alleges that the jury selection practices used in the Fresno division of the Eastern District of California violated the Equal Protection Clause, the Sixth Amendment's fair cross-section requirement, and the statutory requirements for grand and petit juries established by the Jury Selection and Service Act of 1968, 28 U.S.C. Secs. 1861-63. 51 Quinones filed three separate motions on the jury selection issue, each of which the district court denied. Quinones first filed a motion to dismiss the indictment based on the ethnic makeup of the jury wheel from which the grand jury was drawn. The district court denied the motion, because it found that five of the twenty-one members of the grand jury who returned an indictment against Quinones in 1992 were Hispanic, or about 24%. Quinones' expert witness in this case placed the 1992 population of voting-age Hispanics in the Fresno division at 21.3%, while the government expert placed the amount at 19.6-19.9%. 52 Quinones then filed another motion to dismiss the indictment, this time alleging the same problems with petit jury selection. The district court again denied the motion, erroneously stating that Quinones had failed to present evidence as to the jury wheel from which the petit jury was drawn. Instead, Quinones had actually failed to present evidence about the wheel from which the grand jury was drawn. 3 53 Finally, Quinones filed a motion to reconsider his motion regarding the petit jury. The district court denied this motion. In reaching its ruling, the court applied the three-pronged test of Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357 (1979) and found no Sixth Amendment or statutory violation. It does not appear from the record that the district reached Quinones' equal protection allegation.
54 The district court's denial of the motion to dismiss the indictment on the grounds that the grand and petit juries were not properly constituted presents a mixed question of law and fact which we review de novo. United States v. Miller, 771 F.2d 1219, 1227 (9th Cir. 1985). 55 In Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357 (1979), the Supreme Court held that to establish a prima facie violation of the fair cross-section requirement, a defendant must show: (1) the group alleged to be excluded is a distinctive group in the community; (2) 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; (3) this underrepresentation is due to systematic exclusion of the group in the jury selection process. Duren, 439 U.S. at 364.
56 Quinones argues that the court erred when, in reviewing Quinones' claim as to the grand jury, it confined its inquiry to the racial composition of the twenty-one member grand jury that indicted him. We need not reach this issue, however, because Quinones failed to present any evidence to the district court as to the racial composition of the four-year wheel from which his grand jury was drawn. Quinones' expert only analyzed the 1992 jury wheel. This means that Quinones did not meet the second prong of the Duren test as to his grand jury claim. That is, because Quinones did not present any analysis of the jury wheel from which the grand jury was drawn, he did not make a showing that the representation of Hispanics in the wheels from which the grand jury was drawn [was] not fair and reasonable in relation to the number of such persons in the community. Duren, 439 U.S. at 364.
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58 Quinones charges that the 1992 jury wheel from which his petit jury was drawn violated his Sixth Amendment right to a jury made up of a fair cross-section of the community, as well as his statutory claim to the same, under the Jury Selection and Service Act. The test for a constitutionally selected jury is the same, whether challenged under the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution or under the Jury Selection and Service Act. United States v. Miller, 771 F.2d 1219, 1227 (9th Cir. 1985). Thus we can evaluate both claims simultaneously under the three-part Duren test recited above. 59 The government does not contest that Quinones has met the first prong of the Duren test. Hispanics are members of a distinctive and identifiable group in the community. United States v. Sanchez-Lopez, 879 F.2d 541, 547 (9th Cir. 1989), citing Castaneda v. Partida, 430 U.S. 482, 495 (1977). 60 Under the second prong of the Duren test, Quinones was required to show that the representation of Hispanics on the jury source list from which juries are selected is not fair and reasonable in relation to the number of Hispanics in the community. Quinones presented the analysis of an expert demographer who found that Hispanics are underrepresented by an absolute disparity of 10.05% in the 1992 jury wheel. 4 61 A 10.05% absolute disparity is not high enough to meet the second prong of the Duren test. This circuit has consistently held that absolute disparities below 7.7% are insubstantial and constitutionally permissible. United States v. Suttiswad, 696 F.2d 645, 648 (9th Cir. 1982) (7.7% absolute disparity for Hispanics, 4.7% for Asians, 2.8% for Blacks); United States v. Kleifgen, 557 F.2d 1293, 1297 (9th Cir. 1977) (2.9% for Blacks, 4.4 % for males); United States v. Armstrong, 621 F.2d 951, 956 (9th Cir. 1980) (2.8% for Blacks). See also United States v. Rodriguez, 776 F.2d 1509, 1511 (11th Cir. 1985) (Although precise mathematical standards are not possible, this circuit has consistently found that a prima facie case of underrepresentation has not been made where the absolute disparity ... does not exceed 10%.). Quinones cites no cases, from this circuit or otherwise, which have found a Duren violation where there is a 10.05% disparity (in fact, Quinones did not provide the court with any cases where courts found Sixth Amendment violations). 62 Some courts have held that an absolute disparity on the order of twenty percentage points violates the second part of the Duren test. United States v. Irurita-Ramirez, 838 F. Supp. 1385, 1389 (C.D. Cal. 1993) (listing cases). Moreover, courts examining evidence presented in Duren claims have stated a strong preference for examining data on jury source lists and area populations collected over a period of several years. Ramseur v. Beyer, 983 F.2d 1215, 1235 (3rd Cir. 1992), cert. denied, 113 S. Ct. 2435 (1993) (listing cases). Quinones has only presented evidence as to one year. 5 63 Since the absolute disparity under the 1988 jury wheel is within constitutional limits, we do not need to reach the third prong of the Duren, which requires the court to evaluate whether the underrepresentation is caused by systematic exclusion. 6 We thus affirm the ruling of the district court that Quinones has failed to make out a prima facie claim that the Fresno division's jury selection procedures violate the Sixth Amendment or the Jury Service and Selection Act. 64
65 To demonstrate an equal protection violation when challenging the jury selection process, a defendant must demonstrate that: (1) a cognizable group, of which he is a member; (2) has been underrepresented over a significant period of time; and (3) that the selection procedure is susceptible to abuse or is not racially neutral. Castaneda v. Partida, 430 U.S. 482, 494 (1977). 66 Quinones has met the first part of the Castaneda test, as Hispanics are a cognizable group. Id. at 495. Quinones cannot meet the second prong of the Castaneda test, however, because he has presented no evidence covering a significant period of time. As we stated above, Quinones has only presented evidence as to one year (July 1, 1988 to July 1, 1989). As for the third part of the equal protection inquiry, Quinones has not made any argument as to how the selection procedure in the Fresno division is susceptible to abuse or not racially neutral. 67 Quinones has failed to make out a prima facie equal protection claim as to the jury selection process in the Fresno division of the Eastern District of California.