Court Opinion

ID: 9561604
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:12:49.631858+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:01.532756
License: Public Domain

Justice MITCHELL
concurring in result.
I agree that the verdicts and judgments against the defendant must be vacated and that the indictment returned against him by the grand jury must be quashed. I am unable, however, to agree entirely with the reasons stated by the majority for reaching this result. Additionally, I am not in agreement with the majority’s decision to discuss issues concerning sentencing which are irrelevant to the disposition of this case on appeal. Accordingly, I concur only in the result reached by the majority.
I agree that the actual selection of the grand jury foreman in the present case amounted to unintentional racial discrimination in violation of article I, section 26 of the Constitution of North Carolina, because all black members of the grand jury were denied the opportunity to serve as foreman by the recommendation process used. I am not at all sure, however, that I agree with the majority’s view of the method or methods of selecting a grand jury foreman which will comply with that section’s prohibition against racial discrimination.
In particular, I believe that the only qualifications the grand jury foreman may be required to possess under our laws are those qualifications any person is required by N.C.G.S. § 9-3 to possess in order to serve as a juror or as a member of the grand jury. Therefore, I do not agree with the majority’s statement that all grand jurors must be “considered” for appointment as grand jury foreman, if that statement is to be read as implying that some sort of conscious weighing, balancing or comparing of the “qualifications” of the grand jurors must be undertaken in selecting a person for the position of foreman of the grand jury. Quite the contrary, I believe that a random selection method similar to that by which a name is drawn from a container when selecting *466members of the grand jury under N.C.G.S. § 15A-622(b) will, in all probability, be the most clearly racially neutral and, therefore, constitutional method of selecting the foreman of the grand jury which can be devised. In my view, article I, section 26 assures that every grand juror will have an equal opportunity to serve as foreman — not that all grand jurors will be “considered” for that position.
Nor do I join in that part of the opinion of the majority discussing the sentencing of this “defendant,” which I consider entirely obiter dictum. As a result of the majority’s holding today, he does not stand convicted of any crime and is, at this point at least, not formally charged with any crime. Therefore, I find the majority’s advice concerning his sentence somewhat strange at best.
For the foregoing reasons, I concur only in the result reached by the majority.