Opinion ID: 1969489
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: was st. cloud's constitutional right to a jury comprised of a fair cross-section of the community violated due to the composition of the lyman county jury panels?

Text: One the issues raised by St. Cloud in this habeas corpus action is that he was deprived of a fair trial because the jury panel did not include a fair cross-representation of Native Americans. St. Cloud argues that Lyman County's population is approximately 29% Native American; yet the 200-person master jury list was only 9.2% Native American. Throughout the lower court proceedings, the warden of the penitentiary (hereinafter Warden) urged that St. Cloud lacked standing to challenge the jury panel make-up because St. Cloud is not an Indian; the circuit court agreed. For the first time, in this appeal, the Warden argues that St. Cloud did not preserve the issue for appeal because he failed to challenge the jury make-up at the time of the rape and kidnapping trial. St. Cloud counters that since the Warden did not raise this affirmative defense in his pleadings at the habeas trial court level, the defense is waived. We disagree with the lower court's finding that St. Cloud lacked standing to challenge the jury panel make-up; and further find that St. Cloud's challenge is not procedurally barred by waiver. Several cases speak to the question of waiver. The first is Reese v. Nix, 942 F.2d 1276 (8th Cir.1991), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 112 S.Ct. 1220, 117 L.Ed.2d 457 (1992). Reese is a federal habeas corpus action originating in Iowa; Nix is the penitentiary warden. Nix argued, that Reese defaulted on his claim of self-representation because he failed to raise the issue on direct appeal. 942 F.2d at 1280. Thus, Nix took the position that Reese was procedurally barred from raising the issue in his federal habeas petition. The Eighth Circuit disagreed with Nix, and affirmed the holding of the district court, that Nix waived his procedural default defense by failing to affirmatively assert it in his answer to Reese's petition for habeas relief. Id. The Seventh Circuit faced a similar issue in United States ex rel. Blackwell v. Franzen, 688 F.2d 496 (7th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1072, 103 S.Ct. 1529, 75 L.Ed.2d 950 (1983). In this habeas corpus action, the court held that, [w]aiver based on Wainwright is an affirmative defense which must be set forth in the responsive pleading. If the respondent [warden] answers on the merits without relying on Wainwright, the district court may treat the `contemporaneous objection' defense as waived. 688 F.2d at 502 (referring to Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 97 S.Ct. 2497, 53 L.Ed.2d 594 (1977)). The court of appeals also commented on what was termed a distressing phenomenon it had recently observed: `It almost seems as though state defendants do not take the prospect of losing habeas petitions with real seriousness until that in fact occurs, only then devoting full attention to issues and arguments that should have been posed in the first instance.' Id. (quoting United States ex rel. Cosey v. Wolff, 526 F.Supp. 788 (N.D.Ill.1981)). See also People v. Harris, 129 Ill.2d 123, 135 Ill.Dec. 861, 544 N.E.2d 357, 378 (1989), cert. denied, Harris v. Illinois, 494 U.S. 1018, 110 S.Ct. 1323, 108 L.Ed.2d 498 (1990). In Harris, the Illinois Supreme Court noted that: [T]he State did not raise the issue of the timeliness of defendant's objection to the State's use of peremptory challenges when defendant initially filed its pretrial motion for a mistrial, but instead challenged the motion solely on its factual merits.... We therefore conclude that the State has waived its argument that defendant's objection to the State's exercise of peremptory challenges was untimely. Id. (citing Lee v. State, 747 S.W.2d 57, 58 (Tex.App.1988); People v. Colley, 173 Ill. App.3d 798, 123 Ill.Dec. 678, 528 N.E.2d 223 (1988)). Thus, we hold that the Warden has waived the affirmative defense that St. Cloud's objection to the jury panel is untimely. In Conclusion of Law IV, the lower court stated in part that, since [St. Cloud] is not an Indian he has no standing to complain about underrepresentation of Indians on the master jury list, the jury panel or the jury selected. This conclusion was based on the court's Finding of Fact IV, which states that, Both the Federal Court and the State Court have resolved the issue and have found that he is not an Indian. This statement is inaccurate and misreads the federal court's opinion. Rather, the federal district court made the following statements: As a virtually full-blooded Native American, St. Cloud obviously is ethnically an Indian. He is socially recognized and lives as a Native American. 702 F.Supp. at 1458. St. Cloud is socially recognized as an Indian. Id. at 1462. The factors analyzed above guide this Court to conclude that, under the Rogers analysis of the meaning of `Indian' and apart from determining the effect of termination on St. Cloud's status, St. Cloud is an Indian.  Id. (emphasis added). Further, this court clearly noted that the nature of St. Cloud's claim was that he was not an Indian for purposes of federal criminal jurisdiction. 465 N.W.2d at 178 (emphasis added). At no time did either the federal district court, or this court determine that St. Cloud is not an Indian in a racial, ethnic, or blood quantum context; and race and ethnicity not political or legal statusare the bases of St. Cloud's challenge to the composition of a jury panel. See generally HIROSHI FUKURAI ET AL., RACE AND THE JURY: RACIAL DISENFRANCHISEMENT AND THE SEARCH FOR JUSTICE (1993). The record shows that St. Cloud's blood quantum is 29/32 Native American. He cannot be racially classified as anything other than an Indian. [4] More importantly, we must emphasize that St. Cloud's racial classification as a Native American has no bearing on his standing to challenge the composition of the jury panel. The requirement that a jury be made up of a fair cross-section of the community is a right of all defendants, whether or not the defendant is a member of the excluded group. The U.S. Supreme Court has held, for example, that a male defendant may challenge the exclusion of women from the jury panel, and a white defendant may challenge the exclusion of blacks from the jury panel. Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 95 S.Ct. 692, 42 L.Ed.2d 690 (1975); Peters v. Kiff, 407 U.S. 493, 92 S.Ct. 2163, 33 L.Ed.2d 83 (1972). In Taylor, the Court noted: The State first insists that [the defendant], a male, has no standing to object to the exclusion of women from his jury. But [the defendant's] claim is that he was constitutionally entitled to a jury drawn from a venire constituting a fair cross section of the community and that the jury that tried him was not such a jury[.] ... [The defendant] was not a member of the excluded class; but there is no rule that claims such as [the defendant] presents may be made only by those defendants who are members of the group excluded from jury service. Taylor, 419 U.S. at 526, 95 S.Ct. at 695, 42 L.Ed.2d at 695 (emphasis added). In Peters (a habeas corpus action), the Court stated: When any large and identifiable segment of the community is excluded from jury service, the effect is to remove from the jury room qualities of human nature and varieties of human experience, the range of which is unknown and perhaps unknowable. It is not necessary to assume that the excluded group will consistently vote as a class in order to conclude, as we do, that its exclusion deprives the jury of a perspective on human events that may have unsuspected importance in any case that may be presented.... Accordingly, we hold that, whatever his race, a criminal defendant has standing to challenge the system used to select his grand or petit jury, on the ground that it arbitrarily excludes from service the members of any race, and thereby denies him due process of law. Peters, 407 U.S. at 503-04, 92 S.Ct. at 2169, 33 L.Ed.2d at 94-95 (emphasis added). The Court recently reaffirmed these holdings, stating: [O]ur cases hold that the Sixth Amendment entitles every defendant to object to a venire that is not designed to represent a fair cross section of the community, whether or not the systematically excluded groups are groups to which he himself belongs. Holland v. Illinois, 493 U.S. 474, 477, 110 S.Ct. 803, 805, 107 L.Ed.2d 905, 914 (1990). Thus, even if St. Cloud were not 29/32 Native American, he would have standing to challenge the composition of the jury panels in Lyman County. This court has recognized these concepts. State v. Hall, 272 N.W.2d 308 (S.D.1978). In Hall we stated: [T]he 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.... It is not important whether the underrepresentation 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.... `(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. ' 272 N.W.2d at 310 (second emphasis original) (quoting United States v. Armsbury, 408 F.Supp. 1130, 1135 (D.C.Or.1976)). See Hall, 272 N.W.2d at 311 n. 1 (Trial judges may avoid these challenges by supplementing any jury panel where an identifiable group is underrepresented by fifteen percent or more.). See also State v. Lohnes, 432 N.W.2d 77, 84 (S.D.1988) (An `inherent' exclusion of Indians from the jury selection process may also be found with statistical evidence showing that the voting list results in an underrepresentation of Indians. [Citation omitted.] If underrepresentation is shown, fairness requires supplementation of the jury panel.). We hold that since St. Cloud's challenge to the jury panel is not procedurally barred, and he does possess standing to make such a challenge, the merits of his claim must be reached. However, because the lower court failed to fully consider the merits of the claim, there are no findings of fact and conclusions of law for this court to review. A failure to make a finding on a disputed material issue requires a reversal of a judgment. Bell v. Midland Nat'l Life Ins. Co., 78 S.D. 349, 359, 102 N.W.2d 322, 327 (1960) (citing Craigo v. Craigo, 22 S.D. 417, 423, 118 N.W. 712 (1908)). Specific findings may well be the deciding factor of an appeal. Knodel v. Board of County Comm'r of Pennington County, 269 N.W.2d 386, 390 (S.D.1978). Since the habeas court's finding on standing prevented it from considering the merits of the claim, it is appropriate for us to remand this matter so that the lower court may take any necessary additional evidence and enter specific findings of fact and conclusions of law on this issue. Satter v. Solem, 434 N.W.2d 725, 728 (S.D.1989) (remanding to habeas court to consider implications of involuntary admissions). See Gregory v. State, 325 N.W.2d 297, 300 (S.D.1982) (remanding for entry of specific findings and conclusions on enumerated issues); Gregory v. Solem, 420 N.W.2d 362, 363-64 (S.D.1988) (holding that petitioner is entitled to an evidentiary hearing on issues raised).