Court Opinion

ID: 9852945
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:39:37.377756+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:38.242418
License: Public Domain

Justice FRYE
concurring in part, dissenting in part.
As stated by the Court, the rule of State v. Cofield, 324 N.C. 452, 379 S.E.2d 834 (1989) (Cofield II), operates prospectively and does not apply in this case because the order overruling defendant’s motion was made before Cofield II was decided. More specifically, our holding in Cofield II “that, in meeting the racially neutral standard for selecting the foreman of the grand jury, the trial judge must consider all the grand jurors, . . . will apply only to . . . cases in which the indicting grand jury’s foreman is selected after the certification date of [Cofield II.” Id. at 461, 379 S.E.2d at 839. Thus, it is unnecessary for us to decide whether the selection procedures used in this case “insure[d] that all grand jurors [were] considered by the presiding judge for his selection ....” Id. Rather, we must decide whether the selection process here was racially neutral under State v. Cofield, 320 N.C. 297, 357 S.E.2d 622 (1987) (Cofield I). Since defendant has shown a prima facie case of racial discrimination in the selection of the forepersons of the grand juries which indicted him, we must determine whether the State rebutted the prima facie case by showing that the forepersons were chosen in a racially neutral manner. Id. See also State v. Moore, 329 N.C. 245, 404 S.E.2d 845 (1992).
With reference to the selection of the foreman of the grand jury that returned the indictment for felonious assault, I concur in the result reached by the Court. However, I dissent from the result reached by the Court with reference to the selection of the foreman of the grand jury that returned the indictment for murder. The combined testimony of the judge and previous grand jury foreman shows rather clearly that the judge essentially ac*515cepted the subjective judgment of the foreman of the previous grand jury as to who should be appointed as the current foreman. This was essentially the same procedure that had been followed in the past, giving rise to a statistical pattern of underrepresentation of Blacks sufficient to create a prima facie case of racial discrimination. This testimony is simply insufficient to show that the process used in this case was racially neutral so as to rebut the prima facie case of racial discrimination in the selection of the grand jury foreman. See State v. Cofield, 320 N.C. 297, 357 S.E.2d 622 (Cofield I).