Court Opinion

ID: 9884656
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 03:05:17.332395+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:40.009762
License: Public Domain

PAGE, Justice
(concurring specially).
Having authored the court’s opinion in this case, I obviously agree with its conclusions and analysis. I take the unusual step of writing separately to voice concerns, resolution of which are not required by the particular facts and circumstances of this case, yet which I feel require some comment. My concerns are: (1) the fact that the Hennepin County District Court’s grand jury selection process which, at least on its face, appears to be race neutral, also appears to be a system that nonetheless disproportionately excludes people of color from actually serving on grand juries; and (2) the unmet need to identify and provide constitutionally-permissible remedies to eliminate this disproportionate exclusion of people of color.
The intentional exclusion of people of color from service on Hennepin County’s grand juries is not at issue in this case. Nor is the issue the fact that Hennepin County’s race-neutral approach to grand jury selection results in some single-race grand juries. After all, “[t]he Sixth Amendment does not guarantee a criminal defendant a jury of a particular composition * * *." State v. Williams, 525 N.W.2d 538, 542 (Minn.1994) (citing Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 538, 95 S.Ct. 692, 701, 42 L.Ed.2d 690 (1975)). However, I do believe that there is a defect in the design of the Hennepin County selection system that produces a disproportionate number of single-race grand juries and, thus, has the same effect as if the exclusion of people of color was intentional. Invidious discrimination, whether intended or unintended, is devastating to the integrity of our justice system.
While, on its face, the process used by Hennepin County to select grand jurors appears to be race-neutral, it has, for some time, disproportionately1 excluded people of color from participating in one of the most important and fundamental activities of our representative government. At some point, a purportedly race-neutral process that per*898petuates and reinforces inequality of opportunity (in this case, the opportunity to in fact serve on a grand jury) is no different than a race-based process intended to produce the same result. In the end, no practical difference exists between a process that produces single-race grand juries by chance and one that produces single-race grand juries by design. There can be scant comfort for the people of color excluded from participation in our justice system’s decision-making process in the knowledge that their exclusion was not the result of a systematic process and therefore not violative of either the United States or Minnesota Constitutions. Nor can there be much comfort for society at large in the knowledge that, as a result of disproportionate numbers of single-race grand juries, a large segment of our society mistrusts and has lost confidence and faith in the fairness of our justice system. Perpetuating unfairness, in the name of fairness, will not bridge the racial divide we face.
The Hennepin County Task Force proposal raises serious constitutional questions, the most fundamental being, “What is a compelling state interest?” that would justify a race-based grand jury selection process. While we do not need to answer that question to resolve this case, clearly, the current message from the United States Supreme Court seems to be that virtually nothing would justify a race-based selection process for grand jurors. My reading of the Court may or may not be accurate, but it cannot be denied that our citizens of color have a constitutional right to participate in our justice system and, I believe that the fact that people of color are disproportionately excluded from the opportunity to participate implicates a compelling state interest. “The jury is perhaps the most important instrument of justice. For jury service is the only avenue of direct participation in the administration of justice open to the ordinary citizen.” United States Commission on Civil Rights, Justice 89 (1961). Our failure to include people of color in judicial decisions that affect their lives and communities offends the notion of justice. To the extent that the perception of justice legitimizes our justice system, maximizing that perception is in the justice system’s best interest and having people of color represented on grand juries is essential toward that end.
The compelling interest in including people of color in the justice system’s decision-making process is starkly illustrated by the reactions of communities of color when they feel that they have been excluded from the system. For example, the creation of the Hen-nepin County Attorney’s Task Force was prompted by the outrage that occurred after a single-race grand jury refused to indict a white police officer who had shot and killed Tyeel Nelson, a black teenager in Minneapolis. The “accuracy” of that grand jury’s deliberations and decision was irrelevant when the grand jury itself was considered illegitimate. Further, violent reactions to perceived injustice are all too common, as demonstrated most recently in Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Miami, and St. Petersburg. The riots that have taken place in those cities, while deplorable and unacceptable, illustrate the frustrations of a segment of our society that feels alienated from and excluded by the one branch of government whose singular purpose is the dispensation of fair and impartial justice. These riots are an all too clear reminder that, when otherwise law-abiding people feel that government has excluded and ignored them, they react with anger. Indeed, the United States Supreme Court, at one time, recognized that the “need for public confidence is especially high in cases involving race-related crimes. In such cases, emotions in the affected community will inevitably be heated and volatile. Public confidence in the integrity of the criminal system is essential for preserving community peace in trials involving race-related crimes.” Georgia v. McCollum, 505 U.S. 42, 49, 112 S.Ct. 2348, 2354, 120 L.Ed.2d 33 (1992).
In voicing my concerns about the Henne-pin County grand jury selection process, I understand that a defendant is not entitled to jurors who ascribe to a “minority view.” However, the rationale, at least in part, behind having so many jurors serve on the grand jury is to ensure a diversity of views, thereby making its decision richer and more impartial. Cf. Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78, 100, 90 S.Ct. 1893, 1905-06, 26 L.Ed.2d 446 (1970) (stating that the number of petit *899jurors should “be large enough to promote group deliberation, free from outside attempts at intimidation, and to provide a fair possibility for obtaining a representative cross-section of the community.”). The Sixth Amendment’s requirement that a jury pool should be made up of people comprising a fair cross-section of the community is premised on the idea that “[o]ur notions of what a proper jury is have developed in harmony with our basic concepts of a democratic society and a representative government. For ‘It is part of the established tradition in the use of juries as instruments of public justice that the jury be a body truly representative of the community’ * * * and not the organ of any special group or class.” Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 85-86, 62 S.Ct. 457, 472, 86 L.Ed. 680 (1942) (quoting Smith v. Texas, 311 U.S. 128, 130, 61 S.Ct. 164, 165, 85 L.Ed. 84 (1940)). The goal of jury impartiality is best achieved through the widest possible range of views and experiences. While we should not seek to have particular views represented on a grand jury, in order to have a grand jury that is truly representative of the community, we should strive to have the benefit of all views.2 When the views of people of color are disproportionately excluded, our justice system fails to reflect a true democratic process. This flaw must be addressed.
The United States Supreme Court has all but eliminated the government’s ability to invoke race-based measures to rectify racial imbalances. Under its current equal protection strict scrutiny standard, the Court has articulated an extremely narrow set of circumstances where it would uphold race-based measures. Most recently, in Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena, — U.S. —, —, 115 S.Ct. 2097, 2117, 132 L.Ed.2d 158 (1995), the Court cited as the only example3 of a compelling interest the goal of correcting “pervasive, systematic, and obstinate discriminatory conduct.” See also Shaw v. Hunt, — U.S. —, —, 116 S.Ct. 1894, 1902, 135 L.Ed.2d 207 (1996) (stating that remedying the effects of past or present racial discrimination may justify use of a racial classification); Miller v. Johnson, — U.S. —, —, 115 S.Ct. 2475, 2491, 132 L.Ed.2d 762 (1995) (insisting on “a strong basis in evidence of the harm being remedied” before justifying race-based remedies); Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630, 656, 113 S.Ct. 2816, 2831-32, 125 L.Ed.2d 511 (1993) (finding a “significant state interest in eradicating the effects of past racial discrimination”); City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469, 505, 109 S.Ct. 706, 728, 102 L.Ed.2d 854 (1989) (holding that a compelling interest was not implicated when no evidence existed of identified discrimination in the city’s construction industry). In taking this narrow approach, the Court embraces “equal opportunity” or “colorblindness” as the vehicle that will eradicate discrimination in our society. Obviously, equal opportunity is the goal that we seek to achieve, for if we had true equality of opportunity, we would not need to be concerned with equality of result. However, equal opportunity, while a valid and ideal construct, is at this stage only that — an ideal construct. That is, equal opportunity operates on the assumption that society is free of prejudice and discrimination. That is not, however, the reality in which we live. Relying on equal opportunity, which does not exist but which we seek to achieve, as the vehicle to eradicate racial discrimination, *900which does exist, places the cart before the horse. Similarly, colorblindness is a philosophically appealing approach, but is in practice unrealistic because, although theoretically the law may be colorblind, the society we live in is not, nor, as our Racial Bias Task Force has told us, is Minnesota’s justice system. As President Lyndon Johnson accurately stated in a 1965 commencement address at Howard University:
You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘You are free to compete with all the others,” and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.
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* * * we seek not just freedom but opportunity — not just legal equity but human ability — not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact * * *.
Terry Eastland & William J. Bennett, Counting By Race: Equality from the Founding Fathers to Bakke and Weber 6 (1979). Seeking to achieve a colorblind justice system should not mean that we settle for a system that is blind to the effects of invidious discrimination. Making discrimination harder to detect is not the same as making it go away.
“In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race * * * in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently.” Regents of the Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 407, 98 S.Ct. 2733, 2807, 57 L.Ed.2d 750 (1978) (Blackmun, J.). It was Justice Blackmun who anticipated and best summarized the current court’s view on issues of race in his dissent in the 1989 case of Wards Cove Packing Co., Inc. v. Atonio, 490 U.S. 642, 109 S.Ct. 2115, 104 L.Ed.2d 733 (1989). While Justice Blackmun was specifically addressing the Court’s approach to Title VII disparate impact analysis, his comments are equally appropriate here. “The majority’s legal rulings essentially immunize these practices from attack under a Title VII disparate-impact analysis. Sadly, this comes as no surprise. One wonders whether the majority still believes that race discrimination — or, more accurately, race discrimination against nonwhites — is a problem in our society, or even remembers that it ever was.” Id. at 662, 109 S.Ct. at 2127.
Ultimately, the question that must be answered, in light of the current Supreme Court’s constraints on race-based remedial measures, is what measures may be taken that will increase the opportunity for people of color to participate in the democratic process by serving on grand juries and having their views considered and their voices heard. Unfortunately, the parties in this case, being focused on the question of whether we should implement the Hennepin County Attorney’s Task Force proposal, have not provided much assistance. Thus, that question cannot be adequately answered on the record before us. Nor, at least at this time, am I convinced that the question should be answered by this court using its judicial decision-making authority. That question is more properly answered, and acted upon, by the court committee responsible for the General Rules of Practice for the District Courts. This is not to suggest that the issue needs more study. It does not. The committee should identify and implement those measures that it believes will actually have an impact on eliminating the disproportionate exclusion of people of color from serving on grand juries.
I believe there are some race-conscious, but not race-based, measures that can be taken which fit within the Supreme Court’s constraints and, at the same time, will have the effect of reducing the disproportionate exclusion of people of color from grand juries. One such measure would be to allow the jury commissioner to oversample prospective jurors by city, neighborhood, or even zipcode in areas where people of color live in greater numbers. Another measure would be to modify the current selection process by giving the jury commissioner the ability to, at least once,4 randomly reorder the list of prospective jurors when there are people of color included in the pool of eligible *901grand jurors, but none included in the first 23 individuals on the list. The latter suggestion, while not guaranteeing or mandating that the grand jury include people of color, would increase the likelihood of that result. These are just two measures that I believe would reduce the disproportionate exclusion of people of color from service on grand juries. With thoughtful creativity, other measures are waiting to be developed.
Our efforts to increase the number of people of color serving on grand juries will determine the future vitality of a criminal justice system inextricably linked to race. People of color must be included and must actually serve on grand juries if we are “to continue to progress as a multiracial democracy.” Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., Inc., 500 U.S. 614, 630, 111 S.Ct. 2077, 2088, 114 L.Ed.2d 660 (1991). I believe it can be done.

. Between 1968 and March 1991, 26 of 66 Hen-nepin County grand juries were all-white. More recently, between November of 1989 and March of 1991, 3 of 5 grand juries were all-white. The record does not reflect the racial make-up of grand juries selected after March 1991, nor does the record tell us whether people of color were proportionally represented, overrepresented, or underrepresented on any of the grand juries on which they did serve.

. The value of representative juries applies equally to white defendants.
[W]e are unwilling to make the assumption that the exclusion of [minorities] has relevance only for issues involving race. When any large and identifiable segment of the community is excluded from jury service, the effect is to remove from the jury room qualities of human nature and varieties of human experience, the range of which is unknown and perhaps unknowable. It is not necessary to assume that the excluded group will consistently vote as a class in order to conclude, as we do, that its exclusion deprives the jury of a perspective on human events that may have unsuspected importance in any case † * *.
Peters v. Kiff, 407 U.S. 493, 503-04, 92 S.Ct. 2163, 2168-69, 33 L.Ed.2d 83 (1972).

. The Supreme Court's exceedingly narrow view of situations that warrant race-based measures and its failure to give any guidance by clearly articulating measures that can be used to eliminate the racial unfairness plaguing our nation stifles the government’s ability to remedy these problems. In addition, it has the pernicious effect of eroding the hopes and dashing the spirit of those who believe in equal rights for all.

. Any requirement that random reordering of the list of prospective jurors continue until people of color are included on the list would more likely than not run afoul of the Supreme Court’s prohibition against race-based remedial measures.