Court Opinion

ID: 9884543
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 03:01:15.385047+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:39.376183
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE CLARK, specially concurring: Although I agree with the underlying notions in the arguments advanced by my colleague Justice Simon, I believe that, based on the facts in this case, the majority opinion is fair and reasonable, and therefore concur in the result with the following comments. Certainly, no one on this court would disagree with the premise that the systematic exclusion of blacks for jury duty is unconstitutional and should be condemned. However, this is not the situation that we are faced with in the case at bar. A future case may present obvious abuses such as systematic exclusion of jurors on the basis of race, and I would not hesitate to invalidate such a practice, but that is not the case in People v. Payne. In this case, while the defendant is black, the victim is also black. The jury that convicted defendant was composed of 11 whites and one black. The prosecutor used six out of eight peremptory challenges to exclude blacks, but the counsel for the defendant used all of his peremptory challenges to exclude whites. Thus we are not faced with the scenario of an all-white jury convicting a black defendant for a crime against a white victim. However, even in the case before us, the systematic exclusion of blacks from this jury would be unconstitutional if proved. I do not believe it was. Implicit in many of the arguments advanced for reform in the manner of selecting juries is that blacks are less likely to convict fellow blacks than whites. I am not persuaded that this is the case. Many black communities bear the brunt of violent crime, and the citizens of black communities are not automatically more sympathetic to defendants simply because they have black skin. Such arguments merely perpetuate racial stereotypes that have plagued this nation for too long, and are not buttressed by objective studies on jury behavior. (See H. Kalven, The America Jury 195-210 (1966); see generally McCray v. Abrams (E.D.N.Y. Dec. 21, 1983), No. 83-4406.) The systematic exclusion of any group based on sex or ethnicity is equally repugnant, but the most effective way to prevent this may be the drastic reduction of peremptory challenges. Such a reform could well be considered by the legislature as the answer to an enormously complex problem. Prospective jurors are drawn from voter registration rolls, and as blacks register to vote in greater numbers, it may become not only foolhardy, but statistically impossible, to obtain a racially homogenous jury in urban America. Until that day is reached, the judiciary must be vigilant to avoid the systematic exclusion of blacks from jury duty, but in my opinion that is not the situation here. I therefore concur in the result.