Court Opinion

ID: 9776029
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:16:52.291129+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:33.016139
License: Public Domain

LEIBSON, Justice,
dissenting.
Respectfully, I dissent.
The appellants moved to quash the indictment because the grand jury was improperly drawn and/or to set aside the jury panel for the same reason, and asked for “a hearing on this motion.” The motion was accompanied by an affidavit. The affiant “has been actively engaged in the practice of law in the Rockcastle Circuit Court since September, 1960.”
The affidavit establishes a prima facie case that lawyers and physicians have been systematically excluded from jury service in Rockcastle Circuit Court for the past twenty years, and that school teachers have been automatically excused from jury service for the last five or six years during the March and November terms of court.
The affidavit contains specifics; it is not just conclusory. The motion was overruled. The record shows no hearing on the motion and no waiver of the request for a hearing.
The affidavit provided a prima facie case of violation of KRS 29A.090 and of the Administrative Procedures of the Court of Justice, Part II, § 13 and 14, which implement the statutory mandate.
The motion and affidavit were sufficient to require the trial court to either sustain the motion or grant an evidentiary hearing. The failure to do either was reversible error.
The majority opinion expressly overrules Colvin v. Commonwealth, Ky., 570 S.W.2d 281 (1978). In Colvin, we held automatic exclusion of teachers impermissible. We stated:
“This court is of the opinion, and so holds, that the exclusion of an identifiable segment of the community cannot be said to rest in the discretion of the trial judge.” 570 S.W.2d at 282.
Our holding in Colvin is consonant with the mandate of the United States Supreme Court in Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 95 S.Ct. 692, 42 L.Ed.2d 690 (1975), which prohibits “excluding identifiable segments” of the community, and not, as the majority suggests, “beyond the opinions of the United States Supreme Court in this respect.” In any event the Colvin interpretation is identical with KRS 29A.090, which provides:
“Automatic exemptions prohibited— There shall be no automatic exemptions from jury service.”
The Colvin case is a reasonably sound interpretation of United States Supreme Court doctrine, and of recent vintage. It should not be so soon overruled. Further, since the Colvin interpretation is codified in KRS 29A.090, it cannot be properly overruled.
The majority concludes that teachers, physicians and attorneys are not “distinctive groups in a community absent a showing of numerosity and lack of community needs_” I disagree.
The “numerosity” of teachers, doctors and lawyers is irrelevant. None should be automatically excluded.
If “lack of community needs” means that a litigant must overcome a court-created presumption that these professionals should be automatically excluded because to do so serves community needs, simply to state this premise is enough to illustrate the problem.
We seem to be evolving towards a rule that in every circuit the chief circuit judge is authorized to make up a list of groups in the community who may be automatically excluded because he knows, innately, that such is desirable. Whereas the state through its legislature is free to grant ex-*930eruptions from jury service based on “particular occupations the uninterrupted performance of which is critical to the community’s welfare,” (Taylor v. Louisiana, supra 419 U.S. at 534, 95 S.Ct. at 700), no such privilege is extended to the courts, by constitution or otherwise.
The power of the court is limited to granting prospective jurors exemptions on an individual basis “upon a showing of undue hardship, extreme inconvenience or public necessity.” KRS 29A.100.
Within the past year we denied discretionary review in a published opinion of the Court of Appeals, Reid v. Commonwealth, Ky.App., 659 S.W.2d 217 (1983), which reversed the trial court for having excluded “doctors, lawyers, and policemen” as jurors. The Court of Appeals stated:
“This question was timely raised, and we believe reversal is required since automatic exclusion of these groups constitutes a substantial deviation from the statutory method of jury selection.” 659 S.W.2d at 218.
I respectfully suggest that this case, so recently perceived by us as sound, should not be so soon repudiated.
If the majority opinion in this case were limited to holding that counsel did not do enough to raise the point and preserve the error, I would disagree, but I would not be troubled by this decision.
But, unfortunately, the majority opinion goes much further. It overrules Colvin, a precedent which is both recent and reasonable, interpreting the United States Supreme Court’s mandate on the meaning of the Federal Constitution, and disregards the statutory mandate of KRS 29A.090. It gives carte blanche to circuit judges to decide when to exclude identifiable groups in the community'from jury service, whether they should be or not — indeed, whether they wish to be or not.