Court Opinion

ID: 9427103
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:19:43.891691+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:04.866861
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Powell,
with whom The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Rehnquist join, concurring in the judgment.
I concur in the judgment, as I agree that use of a jury as small as five members, with authority to convict for serious offenses, involves grave questions of fairness. As the opinion of Mr. Justice Blackmun indicates, the line between five- *246and six-member juries is difficult to justify, but a line has to be drawn somewhere if the substance of jury trial is to be preserved.
I do not agree, however, that every feature of jury trial practice must be the same in both federal and state courts. Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U. S. 404, 414 (1972) (Powell, J., concurring). Because the opinion of Mr. Justice Blackmun today assumes full incorporation of the Sixth Amendment by the Fourteenth Amendment contrary to my view in Apodaca, I do not join it. Also, I have reservations as to the wisdom— as well as the necessity — of Mr. Justice Blackmun’s heavy reliance on numerology derived from statistical studies. Moreover, neither the validity nor the methodology employed by the studies cited was subjected to the traditional testing mechanisms of the adversary process.* The studies relied on merely represent unexamined findings of persons interested in the jury system.
For these reasons I concur only in the judgment.
Mr. Justice Brennan, with whom Mr. Justice Stewart and Mr. Justice Marshall join.
I join Mr. Justice Blackmun’s opinion insofar as it holds that the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments require juries in criminal trials to contain more than five persons. However, I cannot agree that petitioner can be subjected to a new trial, since I continue to adhere to my belief that Ga. Code Ann. § 26-2101 (1972) is overbroad and therefore facially unconstitutional. See Sanders v. Georgia, 424 U. S. 931 (1976) (dissent from denial of certiorari). See also Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, 413 U. S. 49, 73 (1973) (Brennan, J., dissenting).

The opinion of Mr. Justice Blackmun acknowledges, in disagreeing with other studies, that “methodological problems” may “mask differences in the operation of smaller and larger juries.” Ante, at 237. See also ante, at 242-243.