Court Opinion

ID: 9420138
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:53:06.885739+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:22.659230
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Murphy,
with whom
Mr. Justice Black, Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Rutledge concur, dissenting.
This case represents a tragic consequence that can flow from the use of the “blue ribbon” jury. Two men must forfeit their lives after having been convicted of murder not by a jury of their peers, not by a jury chosen from a fair cross-section of the community, but by a jury drawn from a special group of individuals singled out in a manner inconsistent with the democratic ideals of the jury system. That group was chosen because they possessed some trait or characteristic which distinguished them from the general panel of jurors, some qualification which made them more desirable for the State’s purpose of securing the conviction of the two petitioners. Such a basis for jury selection has no place in our constitutional way of life. It contravenes the most elementary notions of equal protection and I can no more acquiesce in its use in this case than I was able to do in Fay v. New York, 332 U.S. 261.
The constitutional invalidity of this “blue ribbon” system does not depend upon proof of the systematic and intentional exclusion of any economic, racial or social group. Nor does it rest upon a demonstration that “blue ribbon’’ juries are more inclined to convict than ordinary juries. Such factors are frequently, if not invariably, present in “blue ribbon” situations, though proof is extremely difficult. But they are at best only the end products of the system, not the root evil.
*570The vice lies in the very concept of “blue ribbon” panels — -the systematic and intentional exclusion of all but the “best” or the most learned or intelligent of the general jurors. Such panels are completely at war with the democratic theory of our jury system, a theory formulated out of the experience of generations. One is constitutionally entitled to be judged by a fair sampling of all one’s neighbors who are qualified, not merely those with superior intelligence or learning. Jury panels are supposed to be representative of all qualified classes. Within those classes, of course, are persons with varying degrees of intelligence, wealth, education, ability and experience. But it is from that welter of qualified individuals, who meet specified minimum standards, that juries are to be chosen. Any method that permits only the “best” of these to be selected opens the way to grave abuses. The jury is then in danger of losing its democratic flavor and becoming the instrument of the select few.
Hence the “blue ribbon” method of selecting only the “best” of the general jurors, a method instituted with the highest of intentions, does violence to the fundamental precepts of the jury system. Appeals to administrative convenience do not soften that violence. And since the method deprives the defendant of the protection accorded others who are able to draw upon the general panel, it falls under the ban of the Fourteenth Amendment. I would therefore reverse the judgment below.