Court Opinion

ID: 9650701
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:49:35.646972+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:25.444318
License: Public Domain

EDGERTON, Associate Justice
(dissenting).
“The American tradition of trial by jury * * * contemplates an impartial jury drawn from a cross-section of the community. * * * This does not mean, of course, that every jury must contain representatives of all the economic, social, religious, racial, political and geographical groups of the community; frequently such complete representation would be impossible. But it does mean that prospective jurors shall be selected by court officials without systematic and intentional exclusion of any of these groups. * * * Jury competence is an individual rather than a group or class matter. That fact lies at the very heart of the jury system. To disregard it is to open the door to class distinctions and discriminations which are abhorrent to the democratic ideals of trial by jury.” 5 “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.” 6
“The Congress on March 1, 1875, enacted that ‘no citizen possessing all other qualifications which are or may be prescribed by law shall be disqualified for service as grand or petit juror in any court of the United States, or of any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of ser vitude; ’ and made it a crime for any officer to exclude any citizen on those grounds.7 18 Stat. 336 — 37, 8 U.S.C. § 44. For us the majestic generalities of the Fourteenth Amendment are thus reduced to a concrete statutory command when cases involve race or color which is wanting in every other case of alleged discrimination. * * * A Negro who confronts a jury on which no Negro is allowed to sit * * * might very well say that a community which purposely discriminates against all Negroes discriminates against him.”8 “For racial discrimination to result in the exclusion from jury service of otherwise qualified groups not only violates our Constitution and the laws enacted under it hut is at war with our basic concepts of a democratic society and a representative government.” 9
The Supreme Court has also said: “It is the State’s function, not ours, to assess the evidence against a defendant. But it is our duty as well as the State’s to see to it that throughout the procedure for bringing him to justice he shall enjoy the protection which the Constitution guarantees.” 10 And *166“over federal proceedings we may exert a supervisory power with greater freedom to reflect our notions of good policy than we may constitutionally exert over proceedings in state courts.” 11
The quoted cases involved systematic exclusion of Negroes or other groups from jury lists or panels. But the spirit and purpose as well as the letter of those cases forbid systematic exclusion of Negroes from a jury that tries Negroes. The rule against excluding Negroes from the panel has no value if all who get on the panel may be systematically kept off the jury. The government impliedly admits12 that all Negroes were systematically excluded from the jury that tried the Negro appellants. Nineteen Negroes and no other persons were challenged peremptorily by the government. Whether this discrimination against Negroes did or did not violate the Act of Congress13 I think it violated the plainly expressed policy of Congress, the plainly expressed policy of the Supreme Court, the prosecutor’s obligation of fairness,14 and the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. These principles, which the court overlooks, collide with.the principle on which the court relies. The question is whether they limit it or it limits them.
In other respects I concur in the opinion of the court. The trial was otherwise fair and a properly chosen jury would doubtless have convicted the appellants. But “reversible error does not depend on a showing of prejudice in an individual case. The evil lies in the admitted exclusion of an eligible class or group in the community in disregard of the prescribed standards of jm-y selection. * * * The injury is not limited to the defendant — there is injury to the jury system, to the law as an institution, to the community at large, and to the democratic ideal reflected in the processes of our courts.” 15 I believe the prosecutor’s unfortunate error makes a new trial necessary.

 Thiel v. Southern Pacific Co., 328 U. S. 217, 220, 66 S.Ct. 984, 985, 90 L.Ed. 1181, 166 A.L.R. 1412.

 Smith v. Texas, 311 U.S. 128, 130, 61 S.Ct. 164, 165, 85 L.Ed. 84.

 “and any officer or other person charged with any duty in the selection or summoning of jurors who shall exclude or fail to summon any citizen for the cause aforesaid shall, on conviction thereof, be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor $ * * "

 Fay v. New York, 332 U.S. 261, 282-283, 293, 67 S.Ct. 1613, 1625.

 Smith v. Texas, supra note 6, 311 U.S. at page 130, 61 S.Ct at page 165.

 Hill v. Texas, 316 U.S. 400, 406, 62 S.Ct. 1159, 1162, 86 L.Ed. 1559.

 Supra note 8, 332 U.S. at page 287, 67 S.Ct. at page 1627. Cf. McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332, 340, 63 S. Ct. 608, 87 L.Ed. 819; United States v. Mitchell, 322 U.S. 65, 68, 64 S.Ct. 896, 88 L.Ed. 1140.

 The government’s brief says: “Appellants Gray and Hall maintain their constitutional rights were violated by the prosecution’s systematic exclusion of Negroes from the jury. (Hall Br. 18; Gray Br. 23.) In this connection they assert that the prosecution exercised nineteen of its allotted twenty peremptory chaEenges and in each case challenged a Negro.” The brief attacks appellants’ proposition of law but does not question their account of the facts.

 Note 7, supra.

 “The United States Attorney is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at aE; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shaE win a case, but that justice shaE be done. * * * He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor — indeed, he should do so. But, whüe he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones.” Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88, 55 S.Ct. 629, 632, 79 L.Ed. 1314.

 Ballard v. United States, 329 U.S. 187, 195, 67 S.Ct. 261, 265.