Opinion ID: 2076468
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: To Maintain Public Confidence in the Fairness and Impartiality of the Jury System We Must Grant a New Trial in This Case Under Our Supervisory Jurisdiction.

Text: Even more troubling is the majority's reluctance to consider limiting the misuse of peremptory challenges under our supervisory jurisdiction over the system of justice in this State. ( Cf. Ballard v. United States (1946), 329 U.S. 187, 91 L.Ed. 181, 67 S.Ct. 261 (granting new trial under supervisory jurisdiction over Federal courts where, pursuant to State law, women were excluded from a jury venire unless they volunteered); see also United States v. McDaniels (E.D. La. 1974), 379 F. Supp. 1243, 1244 (granting a new trial under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 33 (Fed. R. Crim. P. 33) in the interest of justice where prosecutors used peremptory challenges to remove six of seven black persons from venire).) The cost of not doing so is substantial. The majority's decisions in this case, Williams, and Davis will embolden prosecutors to increase their use of peremptory challenges to exclude black people from jury service. These decisions, as a group, give judicial sanction to racially discriminatory activity in a way that is likely to undermine the jury system and pervert its goal of seeking the truth. The majority's implicit endorsement of these practices will diminish the confidence that the people of this State must have in the fairness and impartiality of the trial by jury, and it will ultimately discourage respect for the law. The defendant is not the only person affected by this pernicious practice  there is injury to the jury system, to the law as an institution, to the community at large, and to the democratic ideal reflected in the processes of our courts. ( Ballard v. United States (1946), 329 U.S. 187, 195, 91 L.Ed. 181, 187, 67 S.Ct. 261, 265.) Moreover, when lawyers use peremptory challenges to exclude prospective black jurors from serving on a jury, they deny those persons the opportunity to participate in the administration of the criminal justice system through the privilege of jury service. In many cases, I suspect, lawyers are using peremptory challenges to exclude black jurors as a group because they presume all black people will decide cases based upon racial affinity with the defendant or the victim in the case rather than upon their obligations as citizens and as impartial jurors. This kind of stereotype has been justly condemned under the equal protection clause. (See Strauder v. West Virginia (1879), 100 U.S. 303, 25 L.Ed. 664; Frontiero v. Richardson (1973), 411 U.S. 677, 36 L.Ed.2d 583, 93 S.Ct. 1764 (opinion of Brennan, J., joined by Douglas, White, and Marshall, JJ.).) Whether exercised by prosecutors or by private attorneys, discrimination based on race, sex, religious creed, or national origin is contrary to the principles of fairness and justice which guide us in the exercise of our supervisory jurisdiction. The idea that a citizen shall have the right to have his guilt or innocence determined by fellow citizens and not by the government is the most cherished democratic component of our common law system of justice. We must do everything in our power to protect this hard won right to trial by jury against practices that would destroy it. It follows that we cannot sanction the method by which the jury panel was formed in this case.    To reassert [the high standards of jury selection], to guard against the subtle undermining of the jury system, requires a new trial by a jury drawn from a panel properly and fairly chosen. Thiel v. Southern Pacific Co. (1946), 328 U.S. 217, 225, 90 L.Ed. 1181, 1187, 66 S.Ct. 984, 988.