Opinion ID: 1355273
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Unconstitutional Selective Prosecution

Text: The major violators unit, MVU, was created by federal grant in the 1970s in response to a need in Shelby County to target repeat offenders. The judges of the Shelby County Criminal Court agreed that MVU cases should be handled by a specific judge in a specific courtroom. Once an offender is designated MVU by the District Attorney General, the case is automatically assigned to Division V of the Shelby County Criminal Court. This program gives the District Attorney discretion to designate any defendant with multiple felony convictions an MVU case, after which one prosecutor is designated to remain with the case through final disposition. Rather than dividing the management and responsibility for a case among numerous prosecutors as it moves through pre-trial and trial, this vertical method of prosecution avoids excessive delay and promotes the more efficient prosecution of repeat offenders. Under LEAA(Law Enforcement Assistance Agency) grants in the 1970s, one courtroom was established to handle MVU cases. One court was to handle the MVU cases for expediency and purposes of judicial economy. Defendants Thomas and Bond raise several complaints arising from their designation as an MVU case. Specifically, Defendant Thomas asserts that, because his case was classified by the office of the District Attorney General as a major violator, multiple violator, or MVU case prior to indictment, the prosecution, in effect, directed the Shelby County Criminal Court Clerk's Office to assign this case to Division V of the Criminal Court. Accordingly, he alleges that the District Attorney engages in unconstitutional selective prosecution and is in violation of Rule 4 of the Rules of Practice and Procedure in the Criminal Courts of Shelby County. Defendant Bond claims that the trial court's failure to require assignment under Rule 4.01, Local Rules of Shelby County Criminal Court, violated his constitutional rights. At the trial level, Defendant(s) sought relief in the form of (1) dismissal of the indictment due to unconstitutional selective prosecution, (2) recusal of the trial court due to acquiescence in the prosecution's disregard of Rule 4.01, and (3) removal of the District Attorney General for the 30th Judicial District. The trial court, in ruling on the Defendants' motions, found, in relevant part: I just truly believe that even taking all of the defendant's factual assertions as being completely true, that their motions are without merit, they're not well-taken, and that there's no purpose to be served by taking proof in this case. I'll accept everything they say as being true with regard to the procedures that are followed  in terms of designating cases for MVU in terms of having the grand jury funnel the MVU cases to Division V. But even with all of those facts being the case, I think the law is still very well settled that that procedure does not violate equal protection or due process in any regard. ... But the same principle  so you don't have prosecutors running to ten or twelve different courts, prosecutors that handled [certain types of cases] can go to one or two courts. Those judges can familiarize themselves with sentencing alternatives. And it's that type of principle, I think, that has been in existence with regard to major violators since its inception in the mid to late 70s; and I think there are sound reasons for it, sound public-policy reasons, sound legal reasons; and absent any showing of specific denial of due process or equal protection, any specific prejudice resulting from the fact that these individuals are in this division of court set for trial, the process itself, I don't think, can be assailed given the case law that allows it and supports it and states that there is no constitutional deprivation with this type of system. Local Rule 4.01, Rules of the Shelby County Criminal Court, provides: The following method will be employed by the Criminal Court Clerk's Office for the initial assignment of cases to the ten divisions of Court. The following types of cases will be assigned to the ten divisions of court in numerical order beginning with Division I through X as the indictments are filed in the Criminal Court Clerk's Office. This procedure shall be used in the following types of cases: Murder in the First Degree, Attempt Murder in the First Degree, Conspiracy to Commit First Degree Murder, Second Degree Murder, Aggravated Kidnapping, Especially Aggravated Robbery, Aggravated Rape, Aggravated Arson, Aggravated Robbery, Rape, Aggravated Sexual Battery, Voluntary Manslaughter, Vehicular Homicide, Kidnapping, Robbery, Spousal Rape and Incest. All other cases will be divided equally among the ten divisions of the Court. All salary petitions filed by the Criminal Court Clerk and the Sheriff will be heard by the Administrative Judge. Rule 4.05, Rules of the Shelby County Criminal Court, provides: The judges may transfer cases among themselves by mutual consent. It is not necessary that the parties or their counsel consent to such transfer. A party requesting a transfer of a case from one division to another division shall obtain an order from the Court to which the case is assigned, transferring the case to another division. Defendants contend that the MVU classification violates Rule 4.01. We conclude otherwise. Rule 4.05 specifically permits judges of the Shelby County Criminal Court to transfer cases among themselves by mutual consent. It appears from the findings of the trial court that the judges of Shelby County by mutual consent have had in place a system for more than twenty years in which MVU defendants would be tried in one particular division of the court. There is no right, constitutional or otherwise, bestowed upon a criminal defendant by Rule 4.01. Indeed, a defendant does not have the right to have his case heard by a particular judge, see Sinito v. United States, 750 F.2d 512, 515 (6th Cir.1984), neither does he have the right to any particular procedure for the selection of a hearing judge, see Cruz v. Abbate, 812 F.2d 571, 574 (9th Cir.1987), nor does he enjoy the right to have a judge selected by a random draw, see Sinito, 750 F.2d at 515. Rather, the rule appears to be an administrative rule created to ensure an even distribution of cases among the various divisions of the Shelby County Criminal Court. Practical realities dictate the allocation of limited public resources. Accordingly, our courts must afford public officials substantial discretion with regard to law enforcement decisions. State v. Harton, 108 S.W.3d 253, 261 (Tenn.Crim.App.2002) (citing Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U.S. 357, 364, 98 S.Ct. 663, 54 L.Ed.2d 604 (1978)). We recognize, however, that the classification of a defendant as a major violator and the subsequent assignment of MVU cases to one division of court implicates issues of selective prosecution and due process on the judicial assignment phase of adjudication. The Due Process Clause imposes strict neutrality requirements on officials performing judicial or quasi-judicial functions. See Schweiker v. McClure, 456 U.S. 188, 195, 102 S.Ct. 1665, 72 L.Ed.2d 1 (1982). Those requirements are not applicable to those acting in a prosecutorial or plaintiff-like capacity. See Marshall v. Jerrico, Inc., 446 U.S. 238, 248, 100 S.Ct. 1610, 64 L.Ed.2d 182 (1980). In an adversary system, [prosecutors] are necessarily permitted to be zealous in their enforcement of the law. Id. When prosecutorial rather than judicial functions are involved, the constitutional interests in accurate finding of facts and application of law, and in preserving a fair and open process for decision, are not to the same degree implicated. See id. In light of the role that prosecutors play as advocates, at least two state courts have concluded that judicial assignment systems allowing prosecutors to select the judge assigned to a particular case violate due process. In State v. Simpson, 551 So.2d 1303 (La.1989) ( per curiam ), the defendant filed an application for a supervisory writ seeking reassignment of his case to another judge. Noting that the prosecutor and the defense attorney had stipulated that in the Louisiana district at issue, the prosecution was allowed to select the judge who presided over criminal cases, the Louisiana Supreme Court granted the writ. The court reasoned: To meet due process requirements, capital and other felony cases must be allotted for trial to the various divisions of the court, or to judges assigned criminal court duty, on a random or rotating basis or under some other procedure adopted by the court which does not vest the district attorney with power to choose the judge to whom a particular case is assigned. Id. at 1304 (footnotes omitted). The Simpson court based this conclusion on the concept that [d]ue process of law requires fundamental fairness, i.e., a fair trial in a fair tribunal. Id. (citing Turner v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 466, 85 S.Ct. 546, 13 L.Ed.2d 424 (1965); State v. Mejia, 250 La. 518, 197 So.2d 73 (1967)). The court noted decisions from other jurisdictions concluding that courts may utilize different methods of assigning criminal cases to judges, but observed that these decisions do not stand for the proposition that the prosecutor may assign cases to the judge of his or her choice. Id. at 1304 n. 3. In an earlier decision, a New York state court took a similar approach. In McDonald v. Goldstein, 191 Misc. 863, 83 N.Y.S.2d 620 (N.Y.Sup.Ct.1948), the court rejected a district attorney's challenge to an order divesting his office of its long-accepted authority to select judges for criminal cases. See id. at 622 (noting that [t]he District Attorney for some time past has selected the judge in each case by moving indictments for trial directly to the several parts of the court.). The court based its ruling on general principles of judicial independence, noting that judges should be free from outside control, especially by any of the litigants. See id. at 625 (It is the people's prerogative, not the District Attorney's to say who will preside over the County Court of Kings County.). In contrast to Simpson and McDonald , most federal courts that have addressed the issue of prosecutorial involvement in judicial assignments have not found due process violations. In Tyson v. Trigg, 50 F.3d 436, 439-42 (7th Cir.1995), cert. den. 516 U.S. 1041, 116 S.Ct. 697, 133 L.Ed.2d 655 (1996), ( Tyson II ), the most recent and thorough of these federal decisions, the Seventh Circuit rejected an argument raised in a habeas corpus proceeding that the case assignment system in an Indiana state court violated the defendant's due process rights. The system in question allowed the prosecutor to select one of six grand juries to which a proposed indictment would be presented. Each grand jury was assigned to a specific judge, and thus, by selecting the grand jury, prosecutors implicitly chose the judge to which the case would be assigned. The habeas petitioner in Tyson II did not argue that the assigned judge was prejudiced against him. Instead, he asserted that to allow the prosecutor to pick the judge so greatly stacks the deck against the defendant as to make the trial unfair  so unfair as to deny due process of law. Id. at 439. The Seventh Circuit rejected that argument. [3] First, it noted a lack of precedent holding that prosecutorial steering could constitute a due process violation warranting the reversal of a conviction. Additionally, it concluded that the fact that the prosecutor might gain a certain advantage over the defendant in being allowed to select the judge did not render the trial fundamentally unfair. See id. at 440-41. It reasoned that the American system of criminal procedure is not balanced equally between the prosecution and the defense at every stage, but rather represents an aggregate of imbalances. Id. at 440. Thus, prosecutors have certain advantages in the investigative stage and in impeaching witnesses, while the rules on burdens of proof favor defendants. See id. Absent any allegation that the judge selected by the prosecutor was actually biased against the defendant, the imbalance caused by the Indiana system was not so egregious as to affect the fairness of the trial. Several other federal courts have held that, in order to establish a due process violation for prosecutorial judge-shopping, a defendant must demonstrate actual prejudice by the assignment of a particular judge to his case. For example, in United States v. Gallo, 763 F.2d 1504, 1532 (6th Cir.1985), cert. den. 474 U.S. 1068, 106 S.Ct. 826, 88 L.Ed.2d 798 (1986), the Sixth Circuit rejected the defendant's argument that he was entitled to a new trial because the prosecutors had engaged in a pattern of steering significant criminal cases to the judges of their choice. See id. The court relied on its earlier decision in Sinito v. United States, supra , in which it had held that due process concerns were not implicated by a clerical error resulting in the assignment of a case to a different judge than would have sat absent the error. See Gallo, 763 F.2d at 1532. The Sinito panel had concluded that a defendant does not have the right to have his case heard by a particular judge, does not have the right to have his judge selected by a random draw, and is not denied due process [when the selection process is not operated in compliance with local rules] ... unless he can point to some resulting prejudice. Sinito, 750 F.2d at 515. The Gallo panel found this reasoning dispositive, rejecting the defendant's argument because he had not alleged that the trial judge was in any way disqualified to hear his case. 763 F.2d at 1532. Several other decisions have similarly required a showing of prejudice. See, e.g., United States v. Erwin, 155 F.3d 818, 825 (6th Cir.1998), cert. den. 525 U.S. 1123, 119 S.Ct. 906, 142 L.Ed.2d 904 (1999); United States v. Osum, 943 F.2d 1394, 1401 (5th Cir.1991). Although all of these decisions offer helpful and relevant analysis, they differ from the instant case. First, we hesitate to conclude that the designation of a criminal defendant as a major violator by the District Attorney General and his Assistants constitutes judge-shopping. Once a defendant is determined to qualify as a major violator, the District Attorney does not select what division to which the case will be assigned. Rather, it appears that the judges of the Shelby County Criminal Court specifically designated Division V to hear such cases. Notwithstanding, even if we were to consider this process judge-shopping, we are also cognizant that the judge assigned to MVU cases has been sworn to uphold the law and defend the Constitution, and his or her conduct can be scrutinized through appellate review. We presume honesty and integrity in those acting as adjudicators. See Withrow v. Larkin, 421 U.S. 35, 47, 95 S.Ct. 1456, 43 L.Ed.2d 712 (1975). Thus, we refuse to presume that the judge assigned to MVU designees acts as an agent of the prosecutor. Additionally, it does not appear to this Court that the designation of Division V as the MVU court necessarily results in a court in which the determination of guilt or innocence cannot reliably be made. Finally, Defendants have failed to establish that they were prejudiced by the assignment of their case to Division V. Accordingly, we cannot conclude that the Defendants were deprived of a fair trial by assignment to Division V nor do we conclude that by assigning MVU defendants to Division V, the Shelby County Courts are in violation of Local Rule 4.01. This issue is without merit. [4]