Court Opinion

ID: 9452171
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:31:52.895261+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:05.831133
License: Public Domain

WISDOM, Circuit Judge
(concurring in the result):
I regret that I cannot go all the way with the majority of the Court.
Since a state may abolish grand juries without violating the Fourteenth Amendment,1 a state has considerable latitude in the type of grand jury system it may establish. Texas uses a small handpicked grand jury venire of sixteen. The system dictates the result the Court reached here; given the system, I concur in the result.
I applaud Judge Brown’s eloquent apologia — but not when he discusses Collins v. Walker. I see no reason whatever for the Court to reach out and bootlessly overrule Collins.
I cannot accept the Court’s premise that “the heart of the matter, the question facing us is whether we should adhere to Collins v. Walker.” The result in Collins is right, dead right. Assuming the constitutionality generally of the Texas jury system, the result in Brooks is right, dead right. On principle, as I see it, Collins is not in conflict with Brooks. The facts in Collins compelled a different result from that reached in Brooks.
I. On principle, Collins is not inconsistent with Brooks.
The Texas grand jury system is based on handpicking sixteen veniremen. Obviously, in such a limited selection process the jury commissioners cannot meet the constitutional requirement that the jury represent a cross-section of the community without consciously selecting persons because of their race, color, economic standing, sex, and religion. To sustain the constitutionality of such a system, the Court must treat the Constitution as color-conscious.
The Louisiana jury system has three stages, three jury lists (except in Orleans Parish): (1) a “general venire” of 300 (the “jury box” or “jury wheel”') selected by the jury commissioners from the parish at large and intended to represent a cross-section of the parish; (2) a grand jury venire of 20 selected (under the law in effect when Collins was indicted) by the commissioners from the general venire;2 and (3) the jury panel of twelve, the foreman selected by the district judge and the other eleven drawn at random. In Orleans Parish, as a matter of custom, there was and is a preliminary stage, a fourth list, a card index or pool of 40,000 names from which the jury commissioners select a general venire or jury box of 750.
Texas has only two stages: (1) the commissioners handpick 16 for the venire; (2) the jury is drawn from the list of 16. The Louisiana general venires of 300 and 750, not the grand jury venire of 20, should be equated with the Texas list of 16.
Louisiana jury commissioners consciously include Negroes in the general venires of 300 and 750, just as the Texas commissioners did in their list of 16 from which the Brooks grand jury was chosen. As a matter of fact, the record in Collins shows that in Jefferson Davis Parish, where Collins was indicted and tried, the commissioners regularly and deliberately included a number of Ne*27groes on the general venire of 300.3 Their inadvertent failure to do so in selecting the general venire for the grand jury sitting when Collins was arrested led the commissioners to make a departure from the jury system that opens the door to abuse.
Collins approves the conscious inclusion of Negroes on the general venire. On principle, therefore, Collins, in terms, is consistent with the conscious selection of Negroes approved in Brooks. Thus, Judge Rives said in the last Collins opinion:
“[/]i may be that the ‘general venire list’ of three hundred persons is required to reflect a suitable cross-section of the population, and that the jury commissioners have an affirmative duty to include qualified Negroes in that list. If such a requirement and duty have once been met in compiling the ‘general venire list’ no repetition is necessary or even allowed in the selection of the list of twenty ‘therefrom.’ Certainly, as to the list of twenty, the basis of selection cannot consciously take race or color into account. There may be a very real distinction in this respect between the ‘general venire list’ of three hundred and the ‘list of grand jurors’ consisting of the names of twenty citizens selected ‘therefrom.’ ” (Emphasis added.) 335 F.2d at 420.
II. The facts in Collins are completely different from the facts in Brooks and compelled the holding the Court reached.
At the time Collins was arrested there were no Negroes on the grand jury then empanelled for six months in Jefferson Davis Parish. There were none on the grand jury venire, for each commissioner assumed that the' other commissioners would include Negroes and took no action himself. For this reason, instead of presenting Collins for indictment before the grand jury then sitting the parish officials held him in jail for five months, then empanelled a new grand jury. The new grand jury was drawn at random, as required by law, from a venire of 20 selected from the general venire of 300. The venire of 20 included six Negroes who were intentionally selected because they were Negroes; five served on the grand jury.
The significant fact in Collins, distinguishing it from Brooks, is that the commissioners used the jury system in a way that is inherently dangerous to the fairness of the system and prejudicial to the accused, giving him standing to challenge his indictment.4 By holding Collins in jail for five months until a new grand jury could be selected, the parish, in effect, maintained an all-white grand jury for white accuseds and a mixed jury for Negro accuseds. By treating Collins differently from other defendants because of his race, the state violated the equal protection clause.
We may assume that the commissioners were actuated by benevolent motives. The effect, however, was not necessarily benign. The second grand jury was empanelled after the crime and arrest of Collins. It is fair to infer that the five who served on the special jury were under the pressure of believing that they had been chosen because of their color and for the purpose of indicting Collins. The departure from the system as it was established by law and practiced in the parish presented the opportunity for undetectable “fundamental unfairness”, in the sense that term was used in Betts v. Brady, 1942, 316 *28U.S. 455, 62 S.Ct. 1252, 86 L.Ed. 1595. The apparent tailoring of the jury selection to one particular case necessarily raises a suspicion of jury packing. It taints the integrity of the indictment and the reliability of the verdict. In distinguishing Collins on the facts, Judge Connally characterized the procedure as “salting” the jury for “a particular case”:
“I am convinced that the Court [in Collins] was further of the view that this new grand jury was literally ‘loaded’ with negroes purely as a defensive measure against a later charge of racial discrimination; and that this grand jury was chosen in this fashion for the express purpose of considering an indictment against Collins alone. I emphasize this circumstance because it is emphasized by the Court, being mentioned three times in the unanimous opinion of the Court on original submission (329 F.2d 100, at p. 104, col. 1, and p. 105, col. 1 and 2). * * Hence I construe Collins only as invalidating the selection of a grand jury chosen pursuant to a long standing practice purposefully to include negroes in a ‘fair’ proportion on every grand jury; and particularly so where a grand jury is picked, and heavily salted with negroes, for the considera> tion of a particular case.” 241 F.Supp. at 745-746.
When courts discuss fundamental rights, some of which might be described as absolutes, it is difficult to avoid lapses into overbroad pronouncements. If the language in Collins is overbroad, we should cut the language down to size. But it is unthinkable that we should give our blessing to the method of jury selection at issue in Collins.
III. Brooks should be limited to the facts it presents.
The Texas grand jury may not be a blue-ribbon jury, but it wears a broad and bright blue stripe. There is historical justification for the system. And if a state wants a superior grand jury, one that carries prestige, and is capable of bringing competent presentments on county jails, county hospitals, and other local agencies, much can be said for a small, handpicked, elite grand jury venire.5 But it is no great shakes as an example of the “basic concepts of a democratic society and a representative government” extolled in Smith v. State of Texas.
As I read Brooks, the Texas system woud not be workable without quotas or proportional representation for minority groups. Even if the Texas system is not unconstitutional by contemporary equal protection and due process standards— there is grave doubt in my mind — it is anachronistic, a creaky sort of a vehicle to carry the great bundle of principles that constitute Brooks.
I do not follow the majority’s view that the selection of two, and no more, Negroes, both chosen because of their race, cures the past evils of a discriminatory jury system. In these circumstances benign quota creates the appearance, not the reality, of non-discrimination. The effect here is to set a limit to the number of Negroes selected for the venire, thereby systematically excluding consideration of additional qualified Negroes. In such a system, the Jury Commission must concern itself less with the general fairness of the jury process than with the composition of each grand jury. This is exactly the opposite of the principle that it is the fairness of the method of selection that is important; a defendant is not entitled to have the members of his group or class represented on the particular jury that indicts or tries him. The only check is the good faith of the commissioners. The grand jury is virtually autonomous and the jury commissioners’ selections depend on their subjective judgments. I do not question the good faith of Texas jury commissioners. I have no doubt *29that in Collins the district judge and the jury were also in good faith. I suggest, however, that the Texas system and others like it are made to order for subtle but effective discrimination in the guise of token integration. Brooks licenses such systems.
In view of the nature of the Texas grand jury system, the invitation it offers for abuse, and the general invidiousness of racial classification, I would limit the question in Brooks as narrowly as possible. As I see it, Brooks held only that in a jury system based on a small, handpicked grand jury venire of 16 the commissioners did the only thing they could do to select a cross-section of the community: they knowingly selected two Negroes because of their race. Thus limited, it is not necessary to overrule Collins: in an analogous situation, the Jury Commission for Jefferson Davis Parish consciously selected Negroes for its general venire.
The Court itself carefully limited its holding in Collins.6 Collins does not mean that all standards or classifications based on race or color are unconstitutional. Each case depends on the facts. The Collins rationale that there should be no racial exclusion or inclusion on the grand jury venire of 207 is not inconsistent *30with taking race into consideration in selecting the general venire of 300 or perhaps to correct imbalance in housing or employment.
In sum, I consider it a serious mistake for this Court to go beyond the necessities of the factual situation and overrule Collins — a case soundly decided on the present and potential in the jury manipulations of the Jefferson Davis commissioners. The unnecessary overruling of any case damages the judicial process. The unnecessary overruling of Collins damages mutual respect in federal-state relations and lowers jury standards. For example, in reliance on Collins, Louisiana changed its law to require that the grand jury venire of 20 be chosen indiscriminately at random from the large general venire. After having directed "the State of Louisiana to march in that direction, this Court in Brooks now orders, “About face, to the rear, march”. I do mean the rear.

. Hurtado v. State of California, 1883, 110 U.S. 516, 4 S.Ct. 111, 28 L.Ed. 232.

. Under the spur of Oollins, the Louisiana statutes were amended to provide for random drawing of the individual grand jury venires. Acts 1964, No. 161, § 1; LSA-R.S. 15:180.

. The record shows that the trial judge had from time to time instructed the jury commissioners “to just be careful that there should be both white and colored members on the jury”; the clerk of the district court had instructed “that there should be some colored representation on each grand jury.” 329 F.2d at 103.

. See Comment, The Defendant’s Challenge to a Racial Criterion in Jury Selection: A Study in Standing, Due Process and Equal Protection, 74 Yale L.Jour. 919 (1965); Note, 78 Harv.L.Rev. 1658 (1965); Note, 50 Iowa L.Rev. 619 (1965).

. Vanderbilt, Judges and Jurors 62-66 (1958); Vanderbilt, Minimum Standards of Judicial Administration 185 (1949); Oi'fielcl, Criminal Procedure from Arrest to Appeal 146 (1947).

. “We limited our holding in the present case as follows: ‘The only list of importance to the decision of this case is the list of twenty from which the foreman was selected and the other eleven grand jurors drawn.’ 329 F.2d 105. The question of whether it would be a denial of equal protection of the laws to intentionally include names of persons selected on the basis of individual qualifications and also on the basis of race in the ‘general venire list’ of three hundred is not here before us and is not decided.” Collins v. Walker, 1964, 335 F.2d 417 at 420-421.

. It was a close question in my mind whether to dissent or to concur in the result reached in Broolcs. I concluded not to dissent because the petitioner did not directly attack the statutory scheme; and because on four occasions the United States Supreme Court has had the Texas jury system under consideration, although never on the precise issue Broolcs raises.
As I see it, given the Texas statutory scheme, the jury commissioners had no alternative. They could provide representative juries only by intentionally including Negroes.
I agree with Judge Rives’ views in Collins, as he limited them (to the Louisiana grand jury system and to similar systems using a small grand jury venire of 16 or 20, selected not drawn by chance). Intentional exclusion or inclusion of Negroes on the grand jury venire violates the equal protection and due process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The decision to select Negroes on a venire of 20 requires the jury commissioners to determine how many Negroes should be included, how many whites. A decision as to what is a fair proportional representation or quota cannot be avoided. The intentional inclusion of six Negroes on a venire of 20 is only another way of saying that it is systematic exclusion of Negroes from fourteen-twentieths of the venire and the systematic exclusion of white persons from six-twentieths of the venire. Venire-stacking by any other name is jury-tampering.
As Judge Rives saw it in Collins, and I agree, the constitutional criterion is the individual’s qualifications as a juryman; his race is irrelevant to his qualifications. Cassell put it, “A man is entitled to have charges against him considered by a jury in the selection of which there has been neither inclusion nor exclusion because of race”. What is an impartial jury except one with its jurymen chosen as individuals regardless of race and other considerations that might affect the integrity of the fact-finding process ? Again as Cassell put it, “Jurymen should be selected as individuals, on the basis of individual qualifications, and not as members of a race.” 339 U.S. 286, 70 S.Ct. 631; This' is an area of the law, above all other areas, where the Constitution is color blind, where Justice Harlan’s words in Plessy against Ferguson do indeed apply:
“In respect of civil rights, common to all citizens, the Constitution of the United States does not, I think, permit any public authority to know the race of those entitled to be protected in the enjoyment of such rights. [163 U.S. at 554] There is no caste here. Our Constitution in color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law regards man *30as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved. [163 U.S. at 559.]”
There are dicta, and there are dicta. Marbury v. Madison and Dred Scott have been explained away as dicta. One is still very much alive, its facts unknown to most persons; the other is dead, dead, its principal fact known to most persons. Even if Cassell might be explained away on the facts, it leaves a vigorous, unassailable, and formidable set of principles apt and sound today.
This is not to say that there are no situations in which race must be taken into account. On the contrary, there may be many instances in which benevolent discrimination may be necessary as an appropriate remedy or in response to a social need. Congress, for example, has enacted numerous laws discriminating in favor of Indians. This Court fashioned the “freezing principle” to give special relief to Negros discriminated against in the past in applying to register to vote.