Court Opinion

ID: 9430492
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:29:51.183662+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:24.602369
License: Public Domain

Justice White,
concurring.
The Court overturns the principal holding in Swain v. Alabama, 380 U. S. 202 (1965), that the Constitution does not require in any given case an inquiry into the prosecutor’s reasons for using his peremptory challenges to strike blacks from the petit jury panel in the criminal trial of a black defendant and that in such a case it will be presumed that the prosecutor is acting for legitimate trial-related reasons. The Court now rules that such use of peremptory challenges in a given case may, but does not necessarily, raise an inference, which the prosecutor carries the burden of refuting, *101that his strikes were based on the belief that no black citizen could be a satisfactory juror or fairly try a black defendant.
I agree that, to this extent, Swain should be overruled. I do so because Swain itself indicated that the presumption of legitimacy with respect to the striking of black venire persons could be overcome by evidence that over a period of time the prosecution had consistently excluded blacks from petit juries.* This should have warned prosecutors that using peremptories to exclude blacks on the assumption that no black juror could fairly judge a black defendant would violate the Equal Protection Clause.
It appears, however, that the practice of peremptorily eliminating blacks from petit juries in cases with black defendants remains widespread, so much so that I agree that an opportunity to inquire should be afforded when this occurs. If the defendant objects, the judge, in whom the Court puts considerable trust, may determine that the prosecution must respond. If not persuaded otherwise, the judge may conclude that the challenges rest on the belief that blacks could not fairly try a black defendant. This, in effect, attributes to the prosecutor the view that all blacks should be eliminated from the entire venire. Hence, the Court’s prior cases dealing with jury venires rather than petit juries are not without relevance in this case.
The Court emphasizes that using peremptory challenges to strike blacks does not end the inquiry; it is not unconstitutional, without more, to strike one or more blacks from the jury. The judge may not require the prosecutor to respond at all. If he does, the prosecutor, who in most cases has had a chance to voir dire the prospective jurors, will have an opportunity to give trial-related reasons for his strikes— *102some satisfactory ground other than the belief that black jurors should not be allowed to judge a black defendant.
Much litigation will be required to spell out the contours of the Court’s equal protection holding today, and the significant effect it will have on the conduct of criminal trials cannot be gainsaid. But I agree with the Court that the time has come to rule as it has, and I join its opinion and judgment.
I would, however, adhere to the rule announced in De-Stefano v. Woods, 392 U. S. 631 (1968), that Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145 (1968), which held that the States cannot deny jury trials in serious criminal cases, did not require reversal of a state conviction for failure to grant a jury trial where the trial began prior to the date of the announcement in the Duncan decision. The same result was reached in DeStefano with respect to the retroactivity of Bloom v. Illinois, 391 U. S. 194 (1968), as it was in Daniel v. Louisiana, 420 U. S. 31 (1975) (per curiam), with respect to the decision in Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U. S. 522 (1975), holding that the systematic exclusion of women from jury panels violated the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments.

 Nor would it have been inconsistent with Swain for the trial judge to invalidate peremptory challenges of blacks if the prosecutor, in response to an objection to his strikes, stated that he struck blacks because he believed they were not qualified to serve as jurors, especially in the trial of a black defendant.