Opinion ID: 1762922
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: motion to quash on ground of illegal selection of petit jury venire

Text: Defense counsel's claim of error arises from the trial court's refusal to quash the petit jury venire selected for the trial of this case. At the hearing, Mr. Robert Marrero was presented as a witness for the defendant. He testified that he had been present in the clerk's office on October 4, 1979, at 11:00 a. m. when the jury commissioners met to select the petit jury venire from the general venire list. According to this witness, jury commissioner Smardan, referring to the upcoming trial, spoke of the present defendant to the following effect: If they don't hang that boy, they ought to shut down the courthouse. The jury commissioners also, according to defense counsel, proceeded to select jury names in a manner which was not indiscriminate as required by La.C.Cr.P. Art. 416 which reads in pertinent part: Art. 416. Drawing petit jury venire in parishes other than Orleans; term of service. A. Upon order of court the jury commission in parishes other than Orleans shall draw a petit jury venire. The commission shall draw indiscriminately and by lot thirty name slips from the general venire box, unless directed by the court order to draw a larger number. The persons whose names are so drawn shall be subject to serve as petit jurors for the first week of the next criminal session of court. The defendant also called a jury commissioner of ten years, Joseph Cefalu, who described the procedure which has been consistently used to select jury venires whenever the five commissioners meet once or twice a month. The following excerpt from that testimony serves to illustrate that procedure: Q Then how would you then select the 20 names that you needed? A Well, I would try to pick the percentage of the colored females, a percentage of the colored males, a percentage of the white females, and I usually pick about 30 percent of the colored, because that's about proportionate of the colored people in our parish. I try to pick on the basis of proportions of the people that live in the parish in my area. ... I can usually tell by the names if it was female, male or colored or white usually by the name. Not that a lot of them I know personally; these that I didn't know I just had to go by the names, knowing the family names. I might not know the person, but the background, where they come from ... But based upon the old family names, I can tell by the native names just about what families they are and whether they are male or female, but I usually could work out pretty, pretty close. Q ... If you had to pick 7 coloreds and there's 20 of those there, you would just pick the 7 that you wanted and the other 13 were just not picked? A Not the ones that I wanted, no. Particularly I would try to pick the ones that I thought would make good jurors, too. Q You say that one of your criteria for a petit juror is the educational background of the individual? A Well, I think that would have something to do with it, if I had to make a decision. Not necessarily. That's not necessarily always true. I know a lot of people with no education would make real good jurors. It depends on the person. I think that's the whole criteria, trying to get a fair representation. One hundred and fifty names were thus selected from the general venire of St. Mary Parish. The State concedes that the procedure used was not in exact accordance with the indiscriminate method prescribed by La.C.Cr.P. Art. 419 which reads, in pertinent part: A general venire, grand jury venire, or petit jury venire shall not be set aside for any reason unless fraud has been practiced or some great wrong committed that would work irreparable injury to the defendant. The jurisprudence allocates to the defendant the burden of establishing fraud or that some irreparable injury was caused by the selection process. State v. Sheppard, 350 So.2d 615 (La.1977); State v. Larue, 324 So.2d 384 (La.1975). The good faith of the testifying Jury Commissioner, Cefalu, is apparent from the record. However, the defendant argues that the comment allegedly made by Commissioner Smardon If they don't hang that boy, they ought to shut down the courthouse, is sufficient to demonstrate a clear prejudice on the part of at least one of the other four commissioners and upon the presentation of this evidence the burden originally should have shifted to the State to rebut the charge that a hanging jury venire had been selected by that commissioner. However, on its cross-examination of Commissioner Cefalu, the State made sufficient progress in discrediting this defense allegation. Cefalu testified that he did not hear Smardon make such a remark, although he was seated next to him. He further testified that the commission is never informed of what case or cases the selected venire will be trying. It does not, therefore, appear that the trial court abused its discretion by ruling that the defendant had failed to carry the burden of proof required under La.C.Cr.P. Art. 419. This assignment of error, consequently, lacks merit.