Court Opinion

ID: 9738724
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:01:34.57102+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:08.149629
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE CRAVEN, dissenting: In Witherspoon v. Illinois (1968), 391 U.S. 510, 20 L. Ed. 2d 776, 88 S. Ct. 1770, the Supreme Court clearly invited reexamination of the constitutional issue then left unresolved. Mr. Justice Stewart, speaking for the majority, said that the data then available was “too tentative and fragmentary to establish that jurors not opposed to the death penalty tend to favor the prosecution in the determination of guilt. We simply cannot conclude, either on the basis of the record now before us or as a matter of judicial notice, that the exclusion of jurors opposed to capital punishment results in an unrepresentative jury on the issue of guilt or substantially increases the risk of conviction. In light of the presently available information, we are not prepared to announce a per se constitutional rule requiring the reversal of every conviction returned by a jury selected as this one was.” 391 U.S. 510, 517-18, 20 L. Ed. 2d 776, 782, 88 S. Ct. 1770, 1774-75. Since the opinion in Witherspoon, studies have been made, and the results are now available. Those studies clearly indicate that the exclusion of jurors opposed to capital punishment results in an unrepresentative jury and one prone to convict. Those studies are analyzed in depth in White, The Constitutional Invalidity of Convictions Imposed by Death-Qualified Juries, 58 Cornell L. Rev. 1176 (1973). I need not here repeat the analysis of the studies. It is inappropriate that we entrust the determination of whether a man is innocent or guilty to a tribunal organized to convict. (Fay v. New York (1947), 332 U.S. 261, 91 L. Ed. 2043, 67 S. Ct. 1613.) The studies now available tell us that a jury chosen within the guidelines of Witherspoon is not a representative cross-section of the community and is prone to convict. The majority opinion, with commendable candor, concedes that the Jurow study (84 Harv. L. Rev. 567 (1971)) is the best presented and that it indicates at most “only a very slight bias toward conviction.” I would think that it is inappropriate to entrust the determination of guilt to a tribunal that is slightly biased in favor of conviction. We have worked long to establish a system of jurisprudence based upon fairness and an absence of bias. We know by data now available that a jury selected as this one was is not in keeping with the constitutional requirement. We offend our heritage and our tradition if we do not correct the error.