Opinion ID: 431715
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Lack of Aliens on the Jury.

Text: 54 Toner makes an extensive argument that the indictment should have been dismissed because the exclusion of aliens from a jury, petit or grand, deprives an alien defendant of a Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury and a Fifth Amendment right to a proper indictment. The argument is, of course, that the systematic exclusion of aliens violates the fair cross section requirement announced and applied by the Supreme Court in such cases as Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357, 99 S.Ct. 664, 58 L.Ed.2d 579 (1979) and Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 95 S.Ct. 692, 42 L.Ed.2d 690 (1975). 55 But, historically, state governments have had the power to exclude aliens from participation in [their] democratic political institutions. Sugarman v. Dougall, 413 U.S. 634, 648, 93 S.Ct. 2842, 2850, 37 L.Ed.2d 853 (1973). Jury service is one of the most fundamental of democratic institutions. See Foley v. Connelie, 435 U.S. 291, 296, 98 S.Ct. 1067, 1071, 55 L.Ed.2d 287 (1978). As the Court stated in that case, it is clear that a State may deny aliens the right to vote, or to run for elective office, for these lie at the heart of our political institutions. Similar considerations support a legislative determination to exclude aliens from jury service. Id. (citations omitted). See also United States v. Gordon-Nikkar, 518 F.2d 972, 976-77 (5th Cir.1975) (Congress may require citizenship of federal jurors); Perkins v. Smith, 370 F.Supp. 134, 138 (D.Md.1974) (three judge court) (not a denial of equal protection to omit aliens from juries), aff'd without opinion, 426 U.S. 913, 96 S.Ct. 2616, 49 L.Ed.2d 368 (1976). 56 Nor does Plyer v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 102 S.Ct. 2382, 72 L.Ed.2d 786 (1982) require a different result. That case held that a Texas statute which withheld from local school districts state funds for the education of alien children and which authorized local school districts to deny enrollment to such children violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Plyer was concerned with the issue of a state government's power to place disabilities upon the innocent children of illegal aliens; the opinion stressed the children were not accountable for their disabling status. Id. at 223, 102 S.Ct. at 2398. The opinion in no way addressed the federal government's immigration power and in no sense involved federal criminal proceedings. As the Gordon-Nikkar court observed, while most state classifications based on alienage are inherently suspect ... the same is not true of all such federal classifications where Congress' plenary authority in the field of immigration is involved. 518 F.2d at 977 (citations omitted). We agree with the Fifth Circuit that neither due process nor equal protection of the law is involved in the time-honored federal system of drawing petit and grand jurors only from citizens of this country. See United States v. Avalos, 541 F.2d 1100, 1118 (5th Cir.1976), cert. denied, 430 U.S. 970, 97 S.Ct. 1656, 52 L.Ed.2d 363 (1977).