Court Opinion

ID: 9489043
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:03:42.293452+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:16.599346
License: Public Domain

MURNAGHAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The Barbers, defendant-appellants, are a married couple who live in Virginia. Nor-wood Barber is black; Linda Barber is white. At voir dire, they requested a question on jurors’ attitudes about interracial marriage. The district judge refused. The majority has found that the refusal to ask a question on voir dire about attitudes toward marriage between blacks and whites did not constitute reversible error. I disagree, finding that, there was a reasonable possibility that prejudice may have influenced the jury against the Barbers as a miscegenous couple.
I.
Up until 1967, the mere fact of the Barbers’ marriage would have subjected them to the possibility of criminal prosecution for a felony and one to five years in jail. Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 4, 87 S.Ct. 1817, 1819-20, 18 L.Ed.2d 1010 (1967) (citing prior Virginia Code).1 Antimiscegenation laws reflected a prevalent social view that mixed-race marriages were immoral, wrong, and violated the sanctity and purity of the white race. Those laws and social views have roots that go back three centuries in America and, in particular, in Virginia. See generally, Leon Higginbotham, Jr. and Barbara K. Ko-pytoff, Racial Purity and Interracial Sex in the Law of Colonial and Antebellum Virginia, 77 Geo.L.J. 1967 (1989); Walter Wadlington, The Loving Case: Virginia’s Antimiscegenation Statute in Historical Perspective, 52 Va. L.Rev. 1189 (1966). As the sociologist Gun-nar Myrdal wrote in 1944:
The ban on intermarriage has the highest place in the white man’s rank order of social segregation and discrimination. Sexual segregation is the most pervasive form of segregation, and the concern about ‘race purity’ is, in a sense, basic. No other way of crossing the color line is so attended by the emotion commonly associated with violating a social taboo as intermarriage and extra-marital relations between a Negro man and a white woman. No excuse for other forms of social segregation and discrimination is so potent as the one that sociable relations on an equal basis between members of the two races may possibly lead to intermarriage.
Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma 606 (1944) (emphasis omitted), quoted in, Higginbotham, supra, at 2025. Indeed, the taboo against marriage between blacks and whites was so strong that antimiscegenation *972statutes constituted the last major category of legally enforced discrimination based solely on race. Wadlington, supra, at 1211.
In 1927, the Virginia legislature passed “An Act to Preserve Racial Integrity,” which prohibited marriage between whites and blacks or any other nonwhites as defined by statute. Loving, 388 U.S. at 6, 87 S.Ct. at 1820-21. The 1927 statute was one in a long line of legal prohibitions against interracial sexual relations and marriage.2
The antimiscegenation laws and prohibitions were the legal manifestations of an often violently enforced taboo against sexual relations between white women and black men.3 That taboo and its legal manifestations sought to preserve the racial purity of white women’s children and a rigid caste system in the South.4
Far from having abated, the social attitudes that led to and supported the antimis-cegenation statutes continued to support an-timiscegenation laws in Virginia well into the latter half of the.20th century, despite the demise of slavery. Higginbotham, supra, at 2021. That sentiment is evident in the Virginia trial court opinion which convicted the Lovings, an interracial couple, of violating Virginia’s antimiscegenation statute in 1959: Loving, 388 U.S. at 3, 87 S.Ct. at 1819. That same sentiment is also evident in the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals opinions which upheld challenges to the constitutionality of Virginia’s antimiscegenation statute in 1955 and in 1966.5 In 1955, the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals looked to multiple other state courts which had upheld the constitutionality of antimiscegenation laws to support the constitutionality of Virginia’s statute. Declaring that those decisions were valid, it reasoned that “the natural law which forbids the [] intermarriage [of blacks and whites] and the social amalgamation which leads to a corruption of races is as clearly divine as that which imparted to them different natures.” Naim v. Naim, 197 Va. 80, 87 S.E.2d 749, 752, vacated and remanded, 350 U.S. 891, 76 S.Ct. 151, 100 L.Ed. 784 (1955), aff'd, 197 Va. 734, 90 S.E.2d 849, motion to recall mandate denied and appeal dismissed, 350 U.S. 985, 76 S.Ct. 472, 100 L.Ed. 852 (1956). The antimiscegenation laws in Virginia were constitutional according to the Virginia court because they “preserve the racial integrity of [Virginia’s] citizens,” prevent a “mongrel breed of citizens,” and “prevent the obliteration of racial pride.” Id., 87 S.E.2d at 756. In 1966, the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia reaffirmed its earlier reasoning in Naim when it denied an interracial couple’s challenge to the constitutionality of the Virginia antimiscegenation statute. Loving v. Commonwealth, 206 Va. 924, 147 S.E.2d 78 (1966), rev’d, 388 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 1817, 18 L.Ed.2d 1010 (1967).
Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such mai’-riages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.
Not until 1967 did the Supreme Court address the constitutionality of antimiscegen-ation laws.6 In Loving the Court ruled that *973Virginia’s antimiscegenation statute violated the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Loving, 388 U.S. at 11-12, 87 S.Ct. at 1823-24. The fact, however, that nine men on the Supreme Court struck down Virginia’s antimiscegenation statute did not result in attitudes changing overnight in Virginia, a state where for over 300 years there had been strong social, legal, and sexual taboos against interracial marriage. The Virginia antimiseegenation statute was on the books in 1967 because a popularly elected legislature had not acted to repeal it.
Without doubt attitudes have changed over time. However, deep-seated sexual taboos of the sort at issue here take time to dissipate. In 1968, the Gallup Poll Organization asked the public how it felt about interracial intermarriage. At that time, 72% of Americans disapproved of interracial marriages.7 While attitudes have somewhat changed since 1968, a significant percentage of the population still holds negative attitudes about marriage between blacks and whites. In 1991, according to a Gallup Poll, 42% of Americans disapproved of marriage between blacks and whites. In the South the percentage of disapproval was shown to be 54%.8
The above polling data indicates that a significant portion of the population continues to disapprove of the Barbers’ decision to marry one another. Them marriage violated social, sexual, and, until recently legal, taboos deeply imbedded in American culture, particularly in the South. The fact remains, no matter how much we dislike it, that we do not live in a color blind world and that many individuals still harbor negative attitudes and feelings about marriage between blacks and whites. To deny that fact is to ignore a social reality, a reality that demonstrates something — namely attitudes toward marriage between blacks and whites — which someone like the Barbers - would need to know when attempting to secure an unbiased and fair jury.
II.
Voir dire examination “plays a critical function in assuring the criminal defendant that his Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury will be honored.” Rosales-Lopez v. United States, 451 U.S. 182, 188, 101 S.Ct. 1629, 1634, 68 L.Ed.2d 22 (1981). The voir dire “serves the dual purposes of enabling the court to select an impartial jury and assisting counsel in exercising peremptory challenges.” Mu’Min v. Virginia, 500 U.S. 415, 431, 111 S.Ct. 1899, 1908, 114 L.Ed.2d 493 (1991). The right of peremptory challenge has been recognized by the Supreme Court as “one of the most important rights secured to the accused.” Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202, 218-19, 85 S.Ct. 824, 834-35, 13 L.Ed.2d 759 (1965) (quoting Pointer v. United States, 151 U.S. 396, 408, 14 S.Ct. 410, 414, 38 L.Ed. 208 (1894)), overruled on other grounds, Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986). It is *974necessary “not only to eliminate extremes of partiality on both sides, but to assure the parties that the jurors before whom they try the case will decide on the basis of the evidence placed before them, and not otherwise.” Id.
Federal judges are given wide discretion in their handling of voir dire. The federal constitution, however, requires that the jury be asked about racial and ethnic bias in certain “special circumstances.” Ristaino v. Ross, 424 U.S. 589, 96 S.Ct. 1017, 47 L.Ed.2d 258 (1976); Ham v. South Carolina, 409 U.S. 524, 93 S.Ct. 848, 35 L.Ed.2d 46 (1973). Those circumstances include, for example, instances where racial issues are “inextricably bound up with the conduct of the trial.” Ristaino, 424 U.S. at 597, 96 S.Ct. at 1021.
Aside from the constitutional requirements, the Supreme Court suggests in its exercise of supervisory power over federal courts that an inquiry as to racial or ethnic prejudice is proper where requested by the defendant. Rosales-Lopez, 451 U.S. at 191, 101 S.Ct. at 1635-36. Failure to honor a defendant’s request for a racial or ethnic question on voir dire, however, is only reversible error “where the circumstances of the case indicate that there is a reasonable possibility that racial or ethnic prejudice might have influenced the jury.” Id.
In Rosales-Lopez the Supreme Court found that there was no reasonable possibility of ethnic prejudice and, therefore, approved the district court’s refusal to ask no more than a general question regarding prejudice against aliens. The defendant was of Mexican-American heritage and accused of participating in a scheme to bring illegal aliens into the country. The defendant requested that the judge ask on voir dire: “Would you consider the race or Mexican descent of Humberto Rosales-Lopez in your evaluation of this case? How would it effect you?” Id. at 185, 101 S.Ct. at 1633. The district judge refused to ask that question. He did ask, however: “Do any of you have any feelings about the alien problem at all?” and “Do any of you have any particular feelings one way or the other about aliens or could you sit as a fair and impartial juror if you are called upon to do so?” Id. at 186, 101 S.Ct. at 1633. The Supreme Court held that the questions regarding attitudes about aliens coupled with the general question on whether the jurors could sit as “fair and impartial” sufficed to root out any possible prejudice against Mexican-Americans as far as voir dire required.9 “There [could] be no doubt that the jurors would have understood a question about aliens to at least include Mexican aliens.” Id. at 193, 101 S.Ct. at 1637.10
Prior to the Supreme Court’s decision in Rosales-Lopez, we found reversible error in this Circuit when the trial judge refused to ask a question on racial or ethnic prejudice requested by a defendant who was a member of a minority group. Rosales-Lopez, 451 U.S. at 187, 101 S.Ct. at 1633-34; see, e.g., United States v. Gore, 435 F.2d 1110 (4th Cir.1970). Shortly after the Supreme Court handed down Rosales-Lopez, we had the opportunity to apply the Supreme Court’s rea*975soning in a case where a black defendant appealed the district judge’s failure to ask on voir due two requested questions regarding racial prejudice. United States v. Brown, 767 F.2d 1078 (4th Cir.1985). The first question requested by the defendant asked about membership in discriminatory organizations, such as the Ku Klux Klan, and the second asked about objective and subjective feelings of racial prejudice. The trial judge refused to ask those questions and instead made a general inquiry into racial prejudice and bias including:
As you may observe, the defendant in this case — he is seated at counsel table — is a member of the black race. If any person has any feeling they would have any difficulty in rendering a fair and impartial trial, giving due weight to all of the evidence and testimony in the case, because the defendant or a witness is a member of the black or white race, then they should tell the Court at this time so that they may be excused from service.
Id. at 1082. Applying Rosales-Lopez, we affirmed the district court’s refusal to ask' more specific questions, changing our standard to hold that where a defendant requests a voir dire question on racial prejudice if “sufficient questions are asked on voir dire to disclose possible racial bias against the defendant, although asked in general terms,” nothing more is required, “except where cir-eumstances of the case indicate a reasonable possibility that racial prejudice may have influenced the jury.” Id. at 1081.11
Here, no general “proxy” question was given to ferret out any potential bias against marriage between blacks and whites, despite several external circumstances that strongly suggest a reasonable possibility for prejudice among the jury pool.12 Those facts, in brief, are as follows. The Barbers are a married couple. Norwood Barber is black and Linda Barber is white. As codefendants they sat at counsel table and were, thus, visible to the entire jury. The Barbers lived and were tried in a State that made their marriage a felony punished by one to five years in jail until the Supreme Court held that it could no longer do so in 1967. The Supreme Court’s decision, however, did not effect an immediate change in attitudes in Virginia where there is a long and complex history of social, sexual, and legal taboos against marriage between blacks and whites. Many individuals continue to maintain residual prejudice from a bygone era. Polling demonstrates a persevering prejudice left over from the social attitudes that supported antimiscegenation laws. The majority ignores those facts and the actuality of substantial prejudice against marriage between blacks and whites.13
*976The Supreme Court has held that where a defendant is accused of a violent crime and where the defendant and the victim are members of different racial or ethnic groups, a reasonable possibility of racial prejudice exists. Rosales-Lopez, 451 U.S. at 192, 101 S.Ct. at 1636. Similarly, here, where the Barbers as codefendants are participants in an interracial marriage that violates deep-seated sexual, social, and until recently legal, taboos, there is a reasonable possibility of prejudice against the Barbers. I therefore feel that it was reversible error not to ask any sort of “proxy” question on voir dire specifically aimed at uncovering prejudice toward marriage between blacks and whites. The question need not have been phrased precisely as the Barbers requested, but it must have gone to the potential for prejudice against mixed-race marriages.
In order “to perform its high function in the best way ‘justice must satisfy the appearance of justice.’ ” Swain, 380 U.S. at 219, 85 S.Ct. at 835 (citing In re Murchison, 349 U.S. 133, 136, 75 S.Ct. 623, 625, 99 L.Ed. 942 (1955)). If a question about negative feelings or attitudes about miscegenous marriages had been asked and answered in a manner demonstrating prejudice against marriage between blacks and whites, the trial judge more than likely would have excused the potential juror for cause. If he had not, the Barbers would have had the opportunity to exercise a peremptory strike on that juror. Not to ask that question and, therefore, to allow jurors who potentially harbored bias against the Barbers to sit and judge them created the risk of a biased jury and partial justice.
Understandably, trial judges are reluctant to make inquiries into racial or ethnic bias in every case for fear of creating the impression “that justice in a court of law may turn upon the pigmentation of skin [or] the accident of birth.” Rosales-Lopez, 451 U.S. at 190, 101 S.Ct. at 1635 (citing Ristaino, 424 U.S. at 596 n. 8, 96 S.Ct. at 1021 n. 8.) “[A]voiding the inquiry,” however, “does not eliminate the problem, and ... [the] trial is not the place in which to elevate appearance over reality.” Id. at 191, 101 S.Ct. at 1635. Ignoring the reality of a reasonable possibility of prejudice against marriage between blacks and whites results in the possibility of precisely the appearance we seek to avoid — justice turning on the pigmentation of skin — that of Linda and Norwood Barber — black and white.
ERVIN, MICHAEL, and MOTZ, Circuit Judges, join in this dissent.

. Virginia was one of 16 states which prohibited and punished marriages based on racial classifications. Loving, 388 U.S. at 6, 87 S.Ct. at 1820-21. Those states were: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. In the 15 years preceding the Loving litigation, 14 additional states had repealed laws outlawing interracial marriages: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. Id. at n. 5.
The Loving opinion and the Virginia antimisce-genation statute it struck down as unconstitutional are nowhere mentioned or recognized by the majority.

. The first known Virginia statute punishing interracial sexual relations was enacted in 1662. Act XII, 2 Laws of Va. 170, 170 (Hening 1823) (enacted 1662), cited in, Higginbotham, supra, at 1993. As early as 1691, Virginia had enacted a statute punishing interracial marriage. Act XVI, 3 Laws of Va. 86, 86-87 (Hening 1812) (enacted 1691), cited in, Higginbotham, supra, at 1995. The punishment in 1691 for marriage between an English or white individual and a black, mulatto, or Indian was banishment and removal from Virginia forever. Id.

. See, e.g., Higginbotham, supra, at 2008-09; Myrdal, supra, at 607.

. Higginbotham, supra, at 2008, 2019.

. The Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals was Virginia’s highest court. It is now called the Virginia Supreme Court.

. A few months following its decision in Broad v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954), the Supreme Court denied certiorari to an appeal challenging Alabama’s antimiscegenation law. Jackson v. State, 37 Ala. App. 519, 72 So.2d 114, cert. denied, 260 Ala. 698, 72 So.2d 116, cert. denied, 348 U.S. 888, 75 S.Ct. 210, 99 L.Ed. 698 (1954). The Supreme Court also refused to rule on a challenge to Virginia’s antimiscegenation statute in 1955, by determining that the record before it was incomplete with respect to the domicile of the parties. Naim v. Naim, 197 Va. 80, 87 S.E.2d 749, vacat*973ed and remanded, 350 U.S. 891, 76 S.Ct. 151, 100 L.Ed. 784 (1955), aff'd, 197 Va. 734, 90 S.E.2d 849, motion to recall mandate denied and appeal dismissed, 350 U.S. 985, 76 S.Ct. 472, 100 L.Ed. 852 (1956).

. George Gallup, Jr. and Dr. Frank Newport, For First Time, More Americans Approve of Interracial Marriage than Disapprove, The Gallup Poll Monthly, Aug. 1991, at 60-62.

. Id. Gallup defines the South as including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas.
The results of the Gallup Poll are based on telephone interviews of 990 adults, eighteen years of age and older, conducted June 13 through 16, 1991. A total of 303 interviews were completed with black individuals, with the national random sample being supplemented by a sample targeted toward areas known to have higher densities of blacks. Six hundred and fifty interviews were conducted with whites, and 36 with individuals who identified themselves as "other.” The question posed to respondents was "Do you approve or disapprove of marriage between blacks and whites?”
The Gallup Poll organization reports that "[f]or results based on the total sample of 990, one can say with 95 percent confidence that the errors attributable to sampling and other random effects, could be plus or minus 4 percentage points. For the black sample, the comparable figure is plus or minus 6 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.” Id. at 61.

. In fact, the trial court excused two jurors for cause based on their responses to its questions about attitudes toward aliens. Rosales-Lopez, 451 U.S. at 193, 101 S.Ct. at 1636-37.

. The majority contends that in Rosales-Lopez the Supreme Court rejected similar arguments to those made by the Barbers. 451 U.S. at 193, 101 S.Ct. at 1636-37. A white woman, whose daughter lived with Rosales-Lopez, 'was a witness at trial. The Supreme Court in Rosales-Lopez, however, did not address the necessity of .a voir dire question about interracial or interethnic marriage and sexual relations where both participants were codefendants. First, the daughter of the white woman, who lived with Rosales-Lopez, was not a codefendant. Second, no such question was requested on behalf of Rosales-Lopez, nor were any arguments made as to the cohabitation prejudice in the lower courts. Third, the Court's holding addressed whether the testimony by the mother of the white woman raised a reasonable possibility that the jury’s determination was influenced by prejudice. The Court held that her testimony had not created a reasonable possibility of prejudice because it had been "substantially corroborated by the other witnesses presented by the Government.” Id. Finally, cohabitation between a Mexican-American and a whitk does not have the same history of deep-seated^ prejudice that marriage between a black and a¡ white has in this country. Thus, the holding in Rosales-Lopez regarding the testimony of a white woman whose daughter lived with the petitioner Rosales-Lopez is inapposite to the Barbers’ circumstances.

. In other cases where there is a possibility of similar prejudice, but which is not racial in character, it is an abuse of discretion not to ask a question directed at that bias. For example, when a trial will turn on the resolution of conflicting testimony between a police officer and a defendant, we have recognized an inherent possibility of juror bias in favor of the officer and, therefore, require the trial court to question the jurors on whether they are more likely to believe a police officer than a witness. Rainey v. Conerly, 973 F.2d 321, 325 (4th Cir.1992); United States v. Evans, 917 F.2d 800, 806-09 (4th Cir.1990). But cf. United States v. Lancaster, 78 F.3d 888 (4th Cir.1996). To refuse to ask such a question denies the defendant “the benefit of a voir dire that will provide essential information so as to allow the intelligent exercise of jury challenges," whether for cause or peremptory. Rainey, 973 F.2d at 325 (quoting Evans, 917 F.2d at 809). But cf. Lancaster, 78 F.3d 888 (4th Cir.1996).

. The district judge made no general or specific inquiry about racial prejudice; he made only the following general inquiries:
Do you know of any reason why you cannot hear the facts of this case fairly and impartially and render a just verdict?
If you are selected to sit on this jury, aside from those who have indicated problems, will you be able to render a verdict solely on the evidence presented at this trial, testimony from the witness stand, the exhibits and in the context of the law as I will give it to you in my instructions, disregarding any other ideas, notions or beliefs about the law that you may have encountered in reaching your verdict? Now, having heard the questions put to you by the court, does any other reason suggest itself to you as to why you could not sit on this jury and render that fair and impartial verdict based on the evidence presented in the context of the court's instructions to you on the law?

.The Barbers' situation is quite different from one where the only possibility of prejudice is suggested by the defendant being of a different race or ethnicity than the juror. See, e.g., United States v. Brooks, 957 F.2d 1138 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 505 U.S. 1228, 112 S.Ct. 3051, 120 *976L.Ed.2d 917 (1992). It was not a codified crime in Virginia in 1967 to be of a different race, i.e. a black. The Barbers’ requested question was directed principally at the interracial aspect of their marriage. It was that aspect, rather than the fact that one was black, which led them to request a voir dire question on attitudes toward interracial marriage.