Court Opinion

ID: 9467213
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:41:53.662418+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:13.835961
License: Public Domain

GIBBONS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
When this long drawn out case was before the court en banc it was my view that Mr. Zicarelli’s fair cross section claim had already been presented to and properly rejected by the New Jersey Courts. 543 F.2d 466, 489 (3d Cir. 1976). That claim is before us again, in a posture essentially no different, except for age, than when we considered it four years ago. Essentially for the reasons set forth in Part III of Judge Sloviter’s opinion, I adhere to my previous view on the cross section claim. There is no geographic component in the fair cross section requirement. The state venue requirement incorporated in Article III, section 2, clause 3 of the Constitution is not applicable to the states, even by analogy, since unlike the federal government, states are limited in the exercise of their judicial power to a single geographic area. The fair cross section requirement is related to the exclusion of classes, and for purposes of class exclusion geography will usually be irrelevant. That is not always the case. It is conceivable that residential patterns may be such that manipulation of the vicinage will result in exclusion of classes. See, e. g., Alvarado v. State, 486 P.2d 891 (Sup.Ct. Alaska 1971). Cf. People v. Jones, 9 Cal.3d 546, 108 Cal. Rptr. 345, 510 P.2d 705 (1973). But in this case the record does not support the inference that moving the vicinage from Hudson County to Burlington County had either the purpose or the effect of excluding from the jury panel from which the trial jury was selected any group or class which has been recognized by federal law for purposes of the fair cross section rule. The demographic differences which have been shown are, as Judge Sloviter points out, insubstantial.
Mr. Zicarelli’s claim that there has been a violation of the Sixth Amendment requirement that trial be in a district “previously ascertained by law” was also presented to us in the prior appeal, but was not considered because it had not been presented to the New Jersey Courts. It has now been considered by those courts and rejected. The majority also rejects it. I dissent from that rejection.
No purpose would be served by a repetition of the scant historical materials bearing upon the adoption of the “previously ascertained by law” requirement. Judge Sloviter has made reference to all of which I am aware. But I part company from the majority in the use to which that material has been put.
One of the grievances which the colonies adopted against King George was the practice of transporting colonials beyond the *327seas for trial.1 When those colonies became states, any purported authority of a superi- or sovereign to remove persons from within their geographic limits came to an end. In the Articles of Confederation the now independent states carefully preserved to themselves their monopoly on sanctioning individuals within their own geographic limits. See Art. II, IX, Articles of Confederation. This treaty model of a federal union proved unworkable, and the 1787 Constitution restored some features of the empire system which the Articles of Confederation had supplanted. The chief added feature was the partial surrender in Article III to a super sovereignty of the monopoly on sanctioning which the colonies had wrested from the empire. But in making that surrender the people of the states incorporated in Article III several limitations upon the sanctioning power of the new federal government. Some of those limitations, such as the definition of treason in Art. Ill, section 3, were carried forward from ancient British statutes which had by then come to be regarded as a part of the British Constitution, The same may be said for the guarantee in Article III, section 2, clause 3, of jury trial in criminal cases. The additional guarantee that “such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed” was, I believe, a reflection of the old grievance against the empire, that the superior sovereignty could and did transport colonials out of their home colonies for trial abroad. The new federal government was prohibited from doing so. I do not believe the clause has anything to do with the composition of the jury, except to the extent that placing the trial in the geographic area of a state determined that composition.
When the 1787 Constitution was sent to the people of the states for ratification it was not at all clear that there would be lower federal courts of original jurisdiction. Had the first Congress opted for the exercise of the judicial power of the United States solely by means of appeal, the place of trial provision in Article III, section 2, clause 3 would have been a redundancy. But when it became clear that Congress would need federal courts of original jurisdiction, if for no other reason than to enforce the revenue laws, new problems arose. Article III, section 1 gave Congress power to ordain and establish inferior courts, and presumably to define their geographic jurisdiction. In exercising that power Congress obviously could not violate the prohibition in Article III, section 2, clause 3 against removing a defendant for trial from the geographic area of the state in which the crime occurred. If there were to be multi-state districts, for example, the trial still would have to take place in the state where the crime occurred. But Congress could and did create more than one district within the territory of a single state.2 That allocation posed three issues. One was the jury vicinage issue, which Judge Sloviter discusses in Part IV of the majority opinion. The second was the geographic issue of transporting defendants to distant districts, which was a refinement of the problem addressed in Article III, section 2, clause 3. The third, which the majority has chosen to disregard, was the problem of Congress manipulating the boundaries of districts after the events constituting the alleged offense had already transpired.
I agree with the majority that such historical evidence as we have been able to find supports the conclusion that the Sixth Amendment, as finally adopted, did not incorporate a geographic vicinage requirement. The amendment went no further than to refine the geographic rule already found in Article III, section 2, clause 3 by prohibiting the federal government from transporting a defendant for trial outside a district within a state if there was more than one such district. The majority reads the place of trial provision in the Sixth Amendment in the same manner. But the *328majority discussion proceeds on what I believe to be an erroneous assumption that the place of trial provisions in the Sixth Amendment and in Article III are addressed only to jury selection.3 Much more was involved in the colonial grievance against transport for trial, including ability to raise bail among friends, availability of witnesses, access to counsel, and proximity of friends and relatives. Even the very psychological pressure of incarceration while awaiting trial at a place far from home tended to operate in favor of the power of the sovereign against the individual, and to tilt the balance against an outcome favorable to a defendant. These concerns, probably more than concerns of jury vicinage, produced the initial Article III geographic limitation and the refined limitation in the Sixth Amendment.
The “previously ascertained by law” clause in. the Sixth Amendment, however, introduces an entirely new subject matter. Article III, section 2, clause 3 by itself would prevent removal for trial across state lines. The language in the Sixth Amendment “State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed,” standing alone, makes a temporal reference. The state and district is a geographic area existing when the offense is committed. The additional language “which district shall have been previously ascertained by law” must, I think, have an additional, non-geographic, anti-manipulative purpose.4
One manipulative purpose against which the Sixth Amendment guards might be an attempt by the federal government, after events allegedly criminal had taken place, to erect a new district within a former state and district, and to appoint a judge believed to be more sympathetic to the current administration’s viewpoint. Another might be the exclusion of rural in favor of urban jurors, who might be thought to have different political outlooks. The early history of the Article III courts suggests that such purposes were thought by many to be within the realm of possibility at least. The previously ascertained by law clause should be read, I believe, as adding to the geographic clauses of Article III and the Sixth Amendment a prohibition against any ex post facto manipulation of the district of trial by the government, for whatever reason.5 Such an absolute prohibition against after the fact manipulation of the district of trial has the merit of avoiding the necessity for making any showing that the government sought or obtained any advantage by virtue of the change. It is a merit because in many cases the motive for a manipulation of the place of trial will be undiscoverable.
*329If I am right that the previously ascertained by law clause in the Sixth Amendment has an anti-manipulative purpose entirely separate from and additional to the place of trial provisions of Article III and the Sixth Amendment, the case against applying the clause and that purpose to the states is singularly unimpressive. As the majority quite fairly acknowledges, removal of the defendant to á new place of trial not previously ascertained by law without disclosed good reasons, without notice and an opportunity to be heard, has serious due process resonances. Here a technical anti-manipulative provision of the Constitution provides a ready due process standard. No reasons of policy have been offered in the majority opinion or in the brief for the State of New Jersey suggesting why that state or any other should have the power to manipulate the place of trial, without even disclosing reasons for that manipulation. Whatever the reasons for the exercise of that power were, they certainly were perceived by the prosecutor to be beneficial to New Jersey, not to Mr. Zicarelli. The state may have feared a Hudson County jury would have been unfairly predisposed to Mr. Zicarelli; the state’s concern has no bearing on the Sixth Amendment inquiry, however. The fundamental point must be made that while the Sixth Amendment protects criminal defendants’ rights to a fair trial, the Constitution bestows no fair trial guarantees on the government. The Sixth Amendment is a limitation on the government’s prosecutorial powers. Hence criminal defendants may assert fair cross section claims, or require removal of the trial to another county or district. Nothing in the Constitution endows the government with reciprocal benefits. Prior to 1868 the assertion of the power to manipulate the place of trial was only a matter of local concern. But since ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment I see no reason why the national policy reflected in the previously ascertained by law clause should not apply.
I would reverse the judgment of the district court and remand with directions to issue the writ of habeas corpus on the ground that the ex parte after the fact change in the place of trial violated the anti-manipulative policy of the Sixth Amendment.

. See Declaration of Independence, in H.S. Commager, ed. Documents of American History 101 (1940).

. The first judiciary act established two districts each in Massachusetts and Virginia. Act of Sept. 24, 1789 § 2, 1 Stat. 73.

. The Sixth Amendment as James Madison proposed it, and as debated in the House of Representatives, guaranteed a speedy trial, confrontation, compulsory process, and counsel, but made no reference to jury trial. A separate amendment, which Madison conceived outside the Bill of Rights, would have replaced Art. Ill, § 2, cl. 3 with the jury vici-nage language to which the majority opinion refers. See 1 Annals of Cong. 435-36 (Gales & Seaton ed. 1834).

. Such information as can be gleaned concerning the motivation for the Sixth Amendment’s “previously ascertained by law” clause supports the assertion of an underlying purpose unrelated to jury venue or geography. The House debates added to Madison’s proposed speedy trial amendment a requirement that trial be held in the state where the crime was committed. 1 Annals of Cong. 756 (Gales & Seaton ed. 1834). The Senate left intact the House version of the speedy trial amendment, but virtually eliminated the jury venue amendment. In a compromise reached in a conference committee, the Senate acceded to inclusion of a jury venue clause, and the House agreed to addition of the previously ascertained by law clause. J. Goebel, History of the Supreme Court of the United States: Antecedents and Beginnings to 1801 (vol. 1, Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise History) 449, 455 (1971). The preexistence of a geographical limitation, and the Senate’s hostility to a jury venue provision suggest the previously ascertained by law clause concerns more than the provenance of jurors or the location of the crime.
See also United States v. Wilson, 28 Fed.Cas. 699, 713 (E.D.Pa.1830) (previously ascertained by law clause relates to court’s jurisdiction; no mention of jury venue).

. Cf. Lewis v. United States, 279 U.S. 63, 70-71, 49 S.Ct. 257, 259, 73 L.Ed. 615 (1929) (rearrangement of counties among two federal districts does not violate defendant’s Sixth Amendment rights because territorial jurisdiction was not changed for the prosecution of past offenses).