Court Opinion

ID: 9473836
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:40:51.803302+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:45.452289
License: Public Domain

GEORGE C. YOUNG, District Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
While concurring in the Court’s analysis and conclusion on each of the Sandstrom and the closing argument issues, I disagree that the petitioner is entitled to relief based on an alleged Fourteenth Amendment violation because of underrepresentation of women in the sentencing jury pool.
As the Court points out, challenges by criminal defendants in state court proceedings to the discriminatory selection of juries have been recognized under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the “fair cross-section” requirement implicit in the Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury. The district court below held that Bowen, a male convicted of raping and murdering a twelve year old female, was denied equal protection of the laws in his sentencing because females were underrepresented on the 1977 traverse jury list from which his sentencing jury was selected. The district court thus found it unnecessary to evaluate Bowen’s claim under the Sixth Amendment. In affirming the district court, the majority likewise purports to reach only the Fourteenth Amendment question.
In my opinion, both logic and Supreme Court precedent compel the conclusion that Bowen lacks standing to assert, on equal protection grounds, that women were underrepresented in the jury pool. In this regard, I would adopt the reasoning of Judge Gee, writing for the new Fifth Circuit, in United States v. Cronn, 717 F.2d 164 (5th Cir.1983). Petitioner’s own equal protection rights obviously were not violated in this case by the alleged underrepresentation of women, and there is no justification for permitting jus tertii standing. Id. at 169-170.
I recognize that this Circuit has reached a contrary result in a line of cases beginning with United States v. Perez-Hernandez, 672 F.2d 1380, 1385-86 (11th Cir.1982), which, like Cronn, involve equal protection challenges to the selection of the grand jury foremen. See also United States v. Holman, 680 F.2d 1340, 1355-56 (11th Cir. 1982); United States v. Cross, 780 F.2d 631, 633-34 (11th Cir.1983); United States v. Sneed, 729 F.2d 1333, 1334 (11th Cir. *6941984). The Fifth Circuit in Crown persuasively points out that the “apparent conflict” among recent Supreme Court decisions, which this Court perceived in Perez-Hernandez, stems from a misreading of Justice Marshall’s plurality opinion in Peters v. Kiff, 407 U.S. 493, 92 S.Ct. 2163, 33 L.Ed.2d 83 (1972). The Peters opinion did not discuss standing “in an equal protection context,” as Perez-Hernandez states (672 F.2d at 1385); indeed, the Peters Court did not reach the equal protection issue. 407 U.S. at 497 n. 5, 92 S.Ct. at 2165 n. 5. The discussion of standing in Peters pertains, rather, to grand jury- composition challenges under the due process clause which — like Sixth Amendment, fair cross-section challenges to petit jury composition — may be raised by any criminal defendant, regardless of his circumstances. Id. at 504, 92 S.Ct. at 2169. See Cronn, 717 F.2d at 167-68, and nn. 4 and 6. Chief Justice Burger’s dissent in Peters noted: “While the opinion of Mr. Justice Marshall refrains from relying on the Equal Protection Clause, it concludes that if petitioner’s allegations are true, he has. been denied due process of law.” 407 U.S. at 509, 92 S.Ct. at 2172. In United States v. Cross, 708 F.2d at 633 n. 4, this Court acknowledged that the Peters plurality opinion “analyzed the exclusion of blacks from grand jury service as a violation of due process.” (Emphasis added).
On the other hand, in the equal protection cases of Castaneda v. Partida, 430 U.S. 482, 494, 97 S.Ct. 1272, 1280, 51 L.Ed.2d 498 (1977), and Rose v. Mitchell, 443 U.S. 545, 565, 99 S.Ct. 2993, 3005, 61 L.Ed.2d 739 (1979), the Supreme Court unequivocally stated that
“in order to show an equal protection violation has occurred in the context of grand jury selection, the defendant must show that the procedure employed resulted in substantial underrepresentation of his race or the identifiable group to which he belongs."
(Emphasis Added).
But whether Perez and its progeny were decided correctly or not, this panel is bound by it in the absence of a reversal by the Eleventh Circuit en banc or by an intervening contrary decision by the Supreme Court. United States v. Holman, 680 F.2d at 1356 n. 11. I construe Hobby v. United States, 468 U.S. —, 104 S.Ct. 3093, 82 L.Ed.2d 260 (1984), as a contrary intervening decision which mandates a re-assessment of the Perez holding.
In Hobby, the Supreme Court evaluated the challenge of a white male to the under-representation of blacks and women in the position of grand jury foreman as a due process challenge. In holding that such discrimination would not warrant reversal of petitioner’s conviction and dismissal of the indictment against him, the Supreme Court sought to distinguish its previous ruling in Rose v. Mitchell, supra, as follows:
“Petitioners’ reliance upon Rose is misplaced. Rose involved a claim brought by two Negro defendants under the Equal Protection Clause. As members of the class allegedly excluded from service as grand jury foremen, the Rose defendants had suffered the injuries of stigmatization and prejudice associated with racial discrimination. The Equal Protection Clause has long been held to provide a mechanism for the vindication of such claims in the context of challenges to grand and petit juries. See, e.g., Castaneda v. Partida, 430 U.S. 482 [97 S.Ct. 1272, 51 L.Ed.2d 498] (1977); Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475 [74 S.Ct. 667, 98 L.Ed. 866] (1954); Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303 [10 Otto 303, 25 L.Ed. 664] (1880). Petitioner, however, has alleged only that the exclusion of women and Negroes from the position of grand jury foreman violates his right to fundamental fairness under the Due Process Clause. As we have noted, discrimination in the selection of federal grand jury foreman cannot be said to have a significant impact upon the due process interests of criminal defendants. Thus, the nature of petitioner’s alleged injury and the constitutional basis of his claim distinguish his circum*695stances from those of the defendants in Rose.
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Given the nature of the constitutional injury in Rose, the peculiar manner in which the Tennessee grand jury selection operated, and authority granted to the one who served as foreman, the Court assumed in Rose that discrimination with regard to the foreman’s selection would require the setting aside of a subsequent conviction, ‘just as if the discrimination proved has tainted the selection of the entire grand jury venire.’ Rose v. Mitchell, supra [443 U.S.] at 551-52, n. 4 [99 S.Ct. at 2997-98, n. 4]. No such assumption is appropriate here, however, in the very different context of the due process challenge by a white male to the selection of foremen of federal grand juries.”
— U.S. at —, 104 S.Ct. at 3098-99, 82 L.Ed.2d at 267-69.
Hobby, then, makes clear and firm the Supreme Court’s previously stated requirement that a petitioner seeking to raise an equal protection challenge must be a member of the race or group allegedly underrepresented on juries or grand juries. By implication, one who is not a member of the underrepresented group lacks standing to raise such a challenge.
In addition, Hobby demonstrates that there is a difference in the evaluation of a due process violation claim from that of an equal protection violation claim. Discrimination in selection of a grand jury foreman could be an equal protection violation {Rose v. Mitchell, supra) but would not be a due process violation (Hobby v. United States, supra). Likewise, there may, in some cases of jury composition disparities, be a difference in the results depending upon whether the challenges are examined under the Fourteenth Amendment equal protection standard or the Sixth Amendment fair cross-section standard. Judge Fay has, for this Court, rested his decision solely on the Fourteenth Amendment claim and declined to decide the Sixth Amendment challenge in the absence of findings or a ruling by the district judge on that issue.
For the reasons set forth above, I dissent to Part IV of the majority opinion; I would reverse the district court’s grant of a new sentencing trial and would remand for a consideration of the issues unresolved in the district court including, but not limited to, the Sixth Amendment fair cross-section claim.