Court Opinion

ID: 9428298
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:23:22.795828+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:12.751658
License: Public Domain

Justice Stevens,
with whom Justice Brennan and Justice Marshall join, dissenting.
The question in this case is whether, in the conduct of the voir dire examination of prospective jurors in criminal prosecutions in the federal courts, the trial judge must, upon request, ask at least one question concerning possible prejudice *196against the minority group to which the defendant belongs. Settled law provides a simple answer to this question.1
The plurality’s new answer to that question contains two parts: it holds that “federal trial courts must make such an inquiry when requested by a defendant accused of a violent crime and where the defendant and the victim are members of different racial or ethnic groups.” Ante, at 192. Because no such “special circumstances” are present in this case, the plurality affirms the judgment of the Court of Appeals. Ante, at 192-194. Heretofore, federal law has required that a racial or ethnic prejudice inquiry be made when requested by the defendant, regardless of the presence or absence of special circumstances indicating that there is a reasonable possibility that prejudice will influence the jury. In this case, because the general quéstions asked by the learned trial judge were inadequate, I respectfully dissent.
An impartial tribunal is'an indispensable element of a fair criminal trial. See In re Murchison, 349 U. S. 133, 136; Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U. S. 717, 722.2 Before any citizen may be permitted to sit in judgment on his peers, some inquiry into his potential bias is essential. Such bias can arise from two principal sources: a special reaction to the facts of the particular case, or a special prejudice against the individual defendant that is unrelated to the particular case. Much as we wish it were otherwise, we should acknowledge the fact that there are many potential jurors who harbor strong prejudices against all members of certain racial, religious, or *197ethnic groups for no reason other than hostility to the group as a whole.3 Even when there are no “special circumstances” connected with an alleged criminal transaction indicating an unusual risk of racial or other group bias, a member of the Nazi Party should not be allowed to sit in judgment on a Jewish defendant.
In 1931, in Aldridge v. United States, 283 U. S. 308, this Court addressed the problem of protecting criminal defendants in the federal courts from the possibility of racial or ethnic bias among prospective jurors. That case was not argued or decided in a vacuum. Rather, it followed a long line of state-court decisions requiring that prospective jurors be questioned about such potential prejudices. Aldridge itself involved the special circumstances that the crime at issue was murder, and that the defendant was black and the victim was a white police officer, but neither the reasoning in Chief Justice Hughes’ opinion for the Court, nor the reasoning in the state-court opinions from which he quoted at length, relied on such special circumstances. The character of the Aldridge holding is best explained by a quotation of both the text and the appended footnotes discussing the leading cases from Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, Texas, and South Carolina:
“The propriety of such an inquiry has been generally recognized. In Pinder v. State, 27 Fla. 370; 8 So. 837, *198the counsel for the accused sought to have the jurors asked on their voir dire: 'Could you give the defendant, who is a negro, as fair and as impartial a trial as you could a white man, and give him the same advantage and protection as you would a white man upon the same evidence?' The Supreme Court of Florida held that the refusal of the court to allow the question was error and reversed the conviction.1 In Hill v. State, 112 Miss. 260; 72 So. 1003, the Supreme Court of Mississippi held that it was fatal error to refuse to permit a negro on trial for murder to put to prospective jurors on their voir dire the following question: 'Have you got any prejudice against the negro, as a negro, that would induce you to return a verdict on less or slighter evidence than you would return a verdict of guilty against a white man under the same circumstances?' The Supreme Court of North Carolina reversed the conviction of a negro because of the refusal of the trial judge to permit a juror to be asked if 'he believed he could, as a juror, do equal and impartial justice between the State and a colored man.’ State v. McAfee, 64 N. C. 339.2 See, also, Fendrick v. State, 39 Tex. Cr. 147; 45 S. W. 589; State v. Sanders, 103 S. C. 216; 88 S. E. 10.
*199283 U. S., at 311-313, and nn. 1, 2.
To avoid the risk that the opinion might be construed as applicable only to prejudice against members of the black race, Chief Justice Hughes added the following paragraph:
“The right to examine jurors on the voir dire as to the existence-of a disqualifying state of mind, has been upheld with respect to other raGes than the black race, and in relation .to religious and other prejudices of a serious character. Potter v. State, 86 Tex. Cr. 380, 384; 216 S. W. 886; People v. Reyes, 5 Cal. 347, 349; Watson v. Whitney, 23 Cal. 375, 379; People v. Car Soy, 57 Cal. 102; Horst v. Silverman, 20 Wash. 233, 234 ; 55 Pac. 52. In People v. Reyes, supra, Mexicans were charged with assault with intent to commit murder, and conviction was reversed because of the refusal to allow questions to determine whether a prospective juror was a member of *200the Know Nothing party, and whether he had taken any oath or obligation which resulted in prejudice, or whether independent of such an oath he entertained a prejudice, which would prevent him from giving the accused a fair trial.3
283 U. S., at 313-314, and n. 3.
Then, toward the end of the Aldridge opinion, Chief Justice Hughes again made it clear that the Court’s holding was not limited to a risk of racial prejudice arising from the special circumstances of a particular case:
“The argument is advanced on behalf of the Government that it would be detrimental to the administration of the law in the courts of the United States to allow questions to jurors as to racial or religious prejudices. We think that it would be far more injurious to permit it to be thought that persons entertaining a disqualifying prejudice were allowed to serve as jurors and that *201inquiries designed to elicit the fact of disqualification were barred. No surer way could be devised to bring the processes of justice into disrepute.” Id., at 314-315.
In light of Chief Justice Hughes’ reasoning, it is not surprising that the overwhelming majority of Federal Circuit Judges who have confronted the question presented in this case have interpreted Aldridge as establishing a firm rule entitling a minority defendant to some inquiry of prospective jurors on voir dire about possible racial or ethnic prejudice unrelated to the specific facts of the case.4 I so read Al-dridge in 1973,5 and I think the message of the case is equally clear in 1981.6 The state-court decisions on which Chief Jus*202tice Hughes relied in Aldridge did not rest upon the presence of special circumstances indicating an unusual likelihood that racial or other prejudice would infect the jury venire.7 Therefore, although such special circumstances were present in Aldridge, that decision has a broader significance. I can “perceive no reason why Aldridge should be applied more restrictively than the precedent on which it rests.” United States v. Gore, 435 F. 2d 1110, 1112, (CA4 1970). Accordingly, unlike the plurality, I would join the majority of Federal Circuit Judges and decline to limit Aldridge to cases involving crimes of interracial violence.
In this case, I agree with the plurality’s view that the voir dire was adequate to determine whether any special circumstances might give rise to juror prejudice. The trial judge did inquire about prejudice related to the smuggling of aliens into California, and I agree that the possibility of prejudice resulting from the relationship between the defendant and the witness Bowling’s daughter was a matter that the trial judge could best evaluate. However, the voir dire was inadequate as a matter of law because it wholly ignored the risk that potential jurors in the Southern District of California might be prejudiced against the defendant simply because he is a person of Mexican descent. Because the defendant’s lawyer perceived a risk of such irrational prejudice in that *203District, his request for a specific question concerning it should have been granted.8
I respectfully dissent.

 “For more than four decades, it has been the rule in federal courts that a trial court must inquire as to possible racial bias of the veniremen when the defendant is a member of a racial minority. Aldridge v. United States, 283 U. S. 308 . . . (1931).” United States v. Powers, 482 F. 2d 941, 944 (CA8 1973) (emphasis in original), cert, denied, 415 U. S. 923.

 A criminal defendant’s right to an impartial jury arises from both the Sixth Amendment and principles of due process. See Ristaino v. Ross, 424 U. S. 589, 595, n. 6.

 The fact that such prejudice may not be a pervasive influence in the particular community from which the jury is drawn or even in society at large does not make this concern any less serious. As Chief Justice Hughes explained in Aldridge v. United States, 283 U. S. 308, 314:
“But the question is not ... as to the dominant sentiment of the community and the general absence of any disqualifying prejudice, but as to the bias of the particular jurors who are to try the accused. If in fact, sharing the general sentiment, they were found to be impartial, no harm would be done in permitting the question; but if any one of them was shown to entertain a prejudice which would preclude his rendering a fair verdict, a gross injustice would be perpetrated in allowing him to sit.”

“1 In the Finder case, supra, the court said: ‘Though the question is not in express terms provided for in the statute above cited’ (McClellan’s Digest, § 10, p. 446) ‘yet it was a pertinent, and, as we think, proper question, to test fully the existence of bias or prejudice in the minds of the jurors. It sought tó elicit a fact that was of the most vital import to the defendant; and a fact, too, that if existent, was locked up entirely within the breasts of the jurors to whom the question was propounded; a knowledge of the existence of which could only be acquired by interrogating the juror himself. The answer to it if in the affirmative could have worked no harm to the juror or to anyone else, but would have done credit to the humanity and intelligence of the juror, and would have satisfactorily exhibited to the court and to the defendant his entire competency, *199so far as the element of bias or prejudice was involved. But, if the answer to it from the jurors had been in the negative, then, wo-bave no hesitancy in saying that it would have shown them to be wholly unfit and incompetent to sit upon the trial of a man of the negro race, whose right to a trial by a fair and impartial jury is as fully guaranteed to him under our constitution and laws, as to the whitest man in Christendom. And such incompeteney asserts itself with superadded force in such a case as this where the life or death of the defendant was the issue to tip the scale in the jury’s hands for adjustment.’

"2 In that ease, the court said (at p. 340): ‘It is essential to the purity of trial by jury, that every juror shall be free from bias. If his mind has been poisoned by prejudice of any kind, whether resulting from reason or passion, he is unfit to sit on a jury. Here, his Honor refused to allow a proper question to be put to the juror, in order to test his qualifications. Suppose the question had been allowed, and the juror had answered, that the state of his feelings toward the colored race was such that he could not show equal and impartial justice between the State and the prisoner, especially in charges of this character, it is at once seen that he would have been grossly unfit to sit in the jury box.’ ”

“3 The court in that case said (at p. 349): ‘As the juror best knows the condition of his own mind, no satisfactory conclusion can be arrived at, without resort to himself. Applying this test then, how is it possible to ascertain whether he is prejudiced or not, unless questions similar to the foregoing are propounded to him? . . .
“ ‘Prejudice being a state of mind more frequently founded in passion than in reason, may exist with or without cause; and to ask a person whether he is prejudiced or not against a party, and (if the answer is affirmative), whether that prejudice is of such a character as would lead him to deny the party a fair trial, is not only the simplest method of ascertaining the state of his mind, but is, probably, the only sure method of fathoming his thoughts and feelings. If the person called had not taken an obligation which would prejudice him against foreigners in such a manner as to imperil their rights in a court of law, he could say so, and the question and answer would be harmless. If, upon the other hand, he had taken oaths, and was under obligations which influenced his mind and feelings in such a manner as to deny to a foreigner an impartial trial, he is grossly unfit to sit as a juror, and such facts should be known.’ ”

 See Frasier v. United States, 267 F. 2d 62, 66 (CA1 1959); King v. United States, 124 U. S. App. D. C. 138, 139, 362 F. 2d 968, 969 (1966); United States v. Gore, 435 F. 2d 1110, 1111-1113 (CA4 1970); United States v. Carter, 440 F. 2d 1132, 1134-1135 (CA6 1971); United States v. Bamberger, 456 F. 2d 1119, 1129 (CA3 1972), cert. denied sub nom. Crapps v. United States, 406 U. S. 969; United States v. Robinson, 466 F. 2d 780, 781-782 (CA7 1972); United States v. Booker, 480 F. 2d 1310, 1310-1311 (CA7 1973); United States v. Powers, 482 F. 2d 941, 944 (CA8 1973), cert. denied, 415 U. S. 923; United States v. Robinson, 485 F. 2d 1157, 1158-1160 (CA3 1973); United States v. Johnson, 527 F. 2d 1104, 1106-1107 (CA4 1975); United States v. Bell, 573 F. 2d 1040, 1042-1043 (CA8 1978); United States v. Bowles, 574 F. 2d 970, 971-973 (CA8 1978) ; United States v. Williams, 612 F. 2d 735, 736-737 (CA3 1979), cert. denied, 445 U. S. 934. Cf. Kuzniak v. Taylor Supply Co., 471 F. 2d 702, 703 (CA6 1972); United States v. Grant, 494 F. 2d 120, 122-123, and n. 6 (CA2 1974), cert. denied, 419 U. S. 849; United States v. Bear Runner, 502 F. 2d 908, 911-913 (CA8 1974).

 See United States v. Booker, supra.

 Nothing in Ristaino v. Ross, 424 U. S. 589, is inconsistent with this interpretation of Aldridge. Ristaino defined the circumstances under which a state trial court is constitutionally required to inquire into racial prejudice on voir dire. The Court in Ristaino expressly noted that it would require, under its supervisory power, that federal trial courts inquire into racial prejudice in cases in which such inquiry was not constitutionally required. 424 U. S., at 597, n. 9. The Court also noted that *202Aldridge was based on the supervisory power, not on the Federal Constitution. 424 U. S., at 598, n. 10. See United States v. Williams, supra; United States v. Bowles, supra.

 The Fourth Circuit, in United States v. Gore, supra, examined the state-court decisions cited in Aldridge and found that some involved crimes with no racial overtones whatsoever. See 435 F. 2d, at 1111-1112. Chief Justice Hughes’ discussion of these decisions in Aldridge indicates that that case established “a broad rule that in any criminal case an accused has a right to inquire whether racial prejudice precludes any juror from reaching a fair and impartial verdict.” 435 F. 2d, at 1111. See also King v. United States, supra, at 139, 362 F. 2d, at 969.

 It is, of course, clear that the trial judge’s duty to give such an instruction was not dependent on the phrasing of the particular questions submitted by defense counsel. See Aldridge, 283 U. S., at 311. It is equally clear that, although trial judges have broad discretion to formulate voir dire questions, the general question whether there was any reason “why you could not sit in this case as a fair and impartial juror,” see ante, at 186, is not an adequate substitute for a specific inquiry; if it were, trial judges might be well advised simply to ask that question and nothing else. See, e. g., United States v. Carter, supra, at 1134-1135; United States v. Robinson, supra, at 782.