Court Opinion

ID: 9467014
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:35:49.663422+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:06.387848
License: Public Domain

*776BRIEANT, District Judge
(concurring).
I concur in the result reached by the majority, but do so for different reasons.
Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 97 S.Ct. 2497, 53 L.Ed.2d 594 (1977) bars federal habeas corpus review if state procedural requirements for raising trial objections have not been met. I agree with the majority that the procedural requirements of New York Criminal Procedure Law § 270.10 (McKinney) were satisfied. However, despite the state trial court’s ruling on the merits, a separate state “procedure,” namely, the method for raising a federal constitutional claim, was not satisfied. The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Second Department (“the Second Department”), in a memorandum decision which the district court described, charitably, as “opaque,” held in a subsequent collateral proceeding that the constitutional claim had not been properly raised. (A. 20). Yet, I do not think that this failure restrains the federal courts from considering Alburquerque’s constitutional claim here. Wainwright cannot be interpreted to grant states a blanket license to set up vague or unreasonable procedural obstacles to the assertion of a federal right.
State procedures must satisfy the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The state procedure which the Second Department imposed here in this case does not. The Second Department’s “opaque” decision held that Alburquerque did not properly raise a constitutional issue, but left unclear what the unsatisfied state requirements are. Our independent research suggests none. There is some suggestion, as pointed out by the majority, that it was appellant’s failure to state or include two elements in his claim before the trial judge which resulted in a failure to satisfy New York’s “contemporaneous objection rule,” as interpreted by the Second Department. Appellant did not allege that he was [to be] deprived of a fair trial, and he did not use the talismanic buzz words, “systematically excluded” with respect to omission of women in the venire.
The Supreme Court in Street v. New York, 394 U.S. 576, 584, 89 S.Ct. 1354, 1361, 22 L.Ed.2d 572 (1969) stated that:
“Insofar as the question of sufficient presentation is one for our independent decision, the controlling principle was set forth in the leading case of New York ex rel. Bryant v. Zimmerman, 278 U.S. 63, 67, 49 S.Ct. 61, 63, 73 L.Ed. 184 (1928):
‘There are various ways in which the validity of a state statute may be drawn in question on the ground that it is repugnant to the Constitution of the United States. No particular form of words or phrases is essential, but only that the claim of invalidity and the ground therefor be brought to the attention of the state court with fair precision and in due time. And if the record as a whole shows either expressly or by clear intendment that this was done, the claim is to be regarded as having been adequately presented.’ ”
A state requirement so opaque as to fail to give notice that a litigant must use certain phrases in the nature of mumbo-jumbo to assert his federal right offends the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Nothing in Wainwright, supra, bars federal review in this case. An adequate opportunity was given to the state courts to rule on the federal issue, in fact, the state trial judge ruled on the merits of the claim.
The majority opinion (at 769) quotes the interchange between the state trial court and defense counsel, and I need not repeat it. It is clear that the state trial judge knew and understood the basis for the challenge. He said so, in so many words. He attempted to distinguish the New York statute from the Louisiana statute found unconstitutional in Taylor. That distinction was a colorable one, but was ultimately rejected by the Supreme Court in Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357, 99 S.Ct. 664, 58 L.Ed.2d 579 (1979). His decision on this important point was articulated more clearly than is often possible for trial judges on the firing line, so to speak, who must make prompt and understandable decisions without opportunity for reflection or research. At the conclusion of his explication, Justice *777Farrell said that he found the panel of jurors, apparently not yet present in the courtroom, to be “proper and legal.” He said that the application was denied, “with exception to each defendant.”
In New York, as in a federal court, there is no purpose any more in granting “an exception” under such circumstances. See New York Crim.Proc.Law § 470.05(2), which reenacts prior provisions in effect in New York since 1946. When a trial judge gives “an exception” today, as Justice Farrell did here, it is no more than a polite and customary way to indicate to counsel that his position is known and understood to the trial court, and that it is not necessary to waste time with any further discussion. This judicial convention is well-known, and generally when a trial attorney has carried the discussion to the point where he has been given “an exception” we should conclude that he has said and done all that is necessary to make the point, and that the Judge has understood the intended point. No further words or expressions of ideas is necessary. The “opaque” opinion of the Second Department to the extent that it holds otherwise, is not in keeping with the accepted practice in all trial courts convened in New York, state and federal.
There is no reason to believe that Alburquerque did not receive a fair trial before an impartial jury. There is no logical basis to think that a male robber would get more sympathy from female jurors. Robbery is not a crime having sexist overtones. As has been remarked in another context, just as there is no perfect crime, there is no perfect trial, and, I add, no perfect .jury. But I would merely direct issuance of the writ on remand. It does not appear that anything could be done on remand to the district court which would save this conviction; the cause is lost, and any such appeal to logic has been foreclosed by the Supreme Court.
This case is unlike Anderson v. Casscles, 531 F.2d 682 (2d Cir. 1976), where the issue was the exclusion from jury service of adult students. No federal court had ever dealt with that issue, nor would the record support a conclusion that the group had been automatically excluded. That is not the situation here. Duren held that:
In order to establish a prima facie violation of the fair-cross-section requirement, the defendant must show (1) that the group alleged to be excluded is a ‘distinctive’ group in the community; (2) that the representation of this group in venires from which juries are selected is not fair and reasonable in relation to the number of such persons in the community; and (3) that this underrepresentation is due to systematic exclusion of the group in the jury-selection process.
439 U.S. at 364, 99 S.Ct. at 668. Applying this test, I fail to see any possibility that the appellant could be denied the relief he seeks. Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 95 S.Ct. 692, 42 L.Ed.2d 690 (1975), in establishing that women are a distinctive group, settles the first point of inquiry. The balance of the Duren claim is resolved by the fact finding by Judge Broderick of the Southern District in Bowens v. Commissioner of Correction of the State of New York, 76 Civ. 2487 — VLB (December 18, 1978). Appendix at 32. Judge Broderick found that in February 1975 when appellant’s trial was held, the percentage of women on New York jury panels was approximately three (3%) percent. In May of that year it was only sixteen (16%) percent. In Duren, supra, a venire having almost fifteen (15%) percent women was held to violate a defendant’s rights.
Appellees have not challenged the data found by Judge Broderick, or similar statistical information from other sources contained in appellant’s brief. However, they argue that appellant has not claimed that the potential jurors or the panel from which the trial jury was chosen received qualifying notices from the jury clerk prior to Taylor.
The majority suggests that the district court on remand determine whether the present claim is barred as a retroactive application of Taylor. This is purely a legal issue raised by appellee, and there is no reason why we should not deal with it at *778this time. The majority directs the district court on remand to consider whether “Alburquerque’s conviction was obtained from a jury which, under applicable law, was ‘empanelled’ or ‘sworn’ upon being summoned for duty, and was thus a pre-Taylor jury, or whether the operative event was the actual administration of the oath to his petit jury, as to which the Taylor holding would then apply.” At 775. Here too I perceive a lost cause. Daniel v. Louisiana, 420 U.S. 31, 95 S.Ct. 704, 42 L.Ed.2d 790 (1975) expressly held that:
The question is whether our decision in Taylor v. Louisiana is to be applied retroactively to other defendants whose opportunity to raise a timely objection to the jury-selection procedures had passed as of the date of our decision in Taylor. We hold that Taylor is not to be applied retroactively, as a matter of federal law, to convictions obtained by juries empaneled prior to the date of that decision. Id. at 32, 95 S.Ct. at 705.
A New York jury is empanelled when sworn. Under New York Criminal Procedure Law § 270.10, such an objection is required to be made before the selection of the petit or trial jury commences. Then, “[i]f a challenge to the panel is allowed, the court must discharge that panel and order another panel of prospective trial jurors returned for the term.” Appellant made a timely objection before the trial commenced, and complied with § 270.10. The challenge was made, the jury selected and sworn, all after the Taylor decision, and appellant’s trial counsel cited Taylor to the trial judge by name.
In view of the above quoted portion of Daniel, and the subsequent gloss on Daniel in Lee v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 461, 462, 99 S.Ct. 710, 711, 58 L.Ed.2d 736, stating that Taylor is “inapplicable to cases in which the [trial] jury was sworn prior to the date of that decision,” I would hold that appellant’s trial was post-Taylor.
On the record before us, a remand is not necessary to establish that the under-representation of women resulted from their systematic exclusion. There has been no suggestion of any other cause. Nor is there any likelihood, in view of Duren, that New York could prove any compelling state interest which would satisfy the Supreme Court.1
For the foregoing reasons, I would reverse and direct issuance of the writ of habeas corpus.

. The majority would remand for the additional purpose of allowing New York to demonstrate any “compelling state interest” which justified the disproportionately small number of women on appellant’s venire. None comes to mind. Implicit in the Supreme Court’s ruling that the Taylor rule is not applicable to cases in which the trial jury was sworn on or prior to January 21, 1975, is the converse proposition that it would be applicable to a criminal trial commencing after that date. In the five counties of New York City alone there were 1,581 felony jury trials commenced in 1975, or an average of 132 per month. It would take weeks, or even months, to qualify and summon a jury panel ■ which would comply with the newly imposed rule, a point which could hardly have escaped the notice of the learned Supreme Court Justices. This implies that it was the intention of the Supreme Court that on January 22, 1975 in New York, Louisiana and other states, everything stop for tea, in the various criminal trial parts. Thereafter, the precious trial time of state trial judges, prosecutors and defenders would be lost for weeks or months until a valid jury could be empanelled. The scheduling and planning of trial counsel with respect to locating witnesses and making them available would be set at naught. Defendants detained for want of bail would have the unpleasant choice of sacrificing a newly found constitutional right, or remaining in durance until a new jury pool could be constituted. Although absurd, these results were obvious, and can hardly be regarded now as constituting a “compelling state interest” which could be shown on remand to justify denial of the writ in this case.