Court Opinion

ID: 9602843
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:00:45.05789+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:47:23.945360
License: Public Domain

Jordan, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority opinion of this court places an asinine arithmetical quota system for the composition of juries in Georgia. Such is not required under the Constitution of the United States, or of this state, or by any of the decisions of the highest court of either.
Granted, the grand jury of 1973 was unconstitutionally composed with only 3% blacks out of a total of 37.3% in the community. Faced with this, the jury commissioners made an apparent bona fide effort to secure a fairly representative cross-section of the citizens of the community by the addition of 321 black persons to the jury list. This brought the black percentage to 22.9% versus 37.3% in the community and 39.2% female versus 51% in the community.
This court says to the jury commissioners that your efforts are fruitless, go back and keep adding names until you reach the exact percentage of blacks and females; only then can you give the defendant a "perfect” trial.
No system of justice can ever reach the pristine heights of perfection. If a defendant is put to trial with jurors who "fairly represent a cross-section of the community” and who swear impartiality between him and the state, what more can he ask? Nothing more than that is needed or required.
I respectfully dissent from Division 2 of the opinion.