Court Opinion

ID: 9721887
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:11:47.194558+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:29.038302
License: Public Domain

Brown, J.
(concurring). Although I fully concur in the majority opinion, I think a few words of caution must be inserted as to the manner by which the newly worded statute ought to be construed where racial or ethnic biases are implicated in a case.
In view of the amendment to c. 234, § 28, by St. 1975, c. 335, which, as indicated at 114, supra, narrows the discretion of the trial judge by expanding the jury selection process in cases where any issue of bias may cloud the trial atmosphere, the question to my mind naturally arises, should some factors, such as race, weigh more heavily than others in the trial judge’s determination to propound questions individually to prospective jurors.
I reiterate my view that in such circumstances racial prejudice ought to be judicially noticed. See Commonwealth v. Williams, 6 Mass. App. Ct. 923, 923-924 (1978) (Brown, J., concurring). See also School Comm. of New Bedford v. Commissioner of Educ., 349 Mass. 410, 416 (1965).
Little need be said to show that racism still exists in the Commonwealth and that such systemic, if at times subtle, prejudice tends to cloud the trial of a member of a minority race. Judicial attentiveness to such tensions in the community which impair tolerance and, it must be said, open-mindedness, ought, therefore, perforce to result in an expansion of the jury selection process for minority defendants. This approach would make more meaningful a defendant’s right effectively to cleanse the jury pool of attitudes which may diminish the opportunity to receive a fair and impartial trial.
It follows that with respect to those cases involving black or Hispanic people a denial of the defendant’s request for individual juror interrogation where there is a minimal in*122dication of possible prejudice would be a ground for ordering a new trial. See and compare Commonwealth v. Dickerson, 372 Mass. 783, 793 (1977), and Commonwealth v. Campbell, 378 Mass. 680, 696 (1979), with Commonwealth v. Williams, supra.