Court Opinion

ID: 9487782
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:26:25.183903+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:29.002479
License: Public Domain

WALKER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Gary Jackman’s venire was clearly the product of the misfeasance (although, as the majority notes, not malfeasance) of the Hartford jury clerk’s office. Jackman appears to have had a clear remedy for this wrong under the Jury Selection and Service Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1861 et seq., but he failed to make a timely and sufficient motion to vindicate his statutory rights. He also had a colorable equal protection argument under the Fifth Amendment as the third-party proponent of the rights of prospective minority jurors, but he did not argue that theory to the district court and abandoned even his first-party Fifth Amendment claim on appeal. In giving Jackman a remedy despite these defaults, the majority disregards the standards applied uniformly across the circuits for determining Sixth Amendment violations. Because I believe that the Sixth Amendment should not be invoked to correct jury selection errors that have only a de minimis effect on a criminal defendant’s right to a representative jury venire, I respectfully dissent.
I. The Jury Selection and Service Act
Jackman would appear to have had a statutory remedy here had he complied with the procedures mandated by the Jury Selection *1249and Service Act (the “Act”), 28 U.S.C. § 1861 et seq. The statutory protections go beyond the remedy available under the Sixth Amendment. However, the fact that Jackman is procedurally barred from relief under the Act does not justify the alteration of Sixth Amendment jurisprudence undertaken by the majority. Because my point is underscored by the availability of a statutory remedy to a defendant in Jackman’s position who advances his claim in a timely and sufficient manner, some elaboration of the statutory issue is useful.
The objective of the Act is to secure in federal courts a trial by a jury “selected at random from a fair cross section of the community,” 28 U.S.C. § 1861, from which no citizen is excluded on the basis of invidious discrimination, 28 U.S.C. § 1862. See United States v. Jenkins, 496 F.2d 57, 64 (2d Cir.1974), cert. denied, 420 U.S. 925, 95 S.Ct. 1119, 43 L.Ed.2d 394 (1975). To that end the Act provides that federal district courts must devise a plan for random selection of grand and petit jurors, 28 U.S.C. § 1863, and sets forth procedures for drawing names from a master wheel and summoning, qualifying, and impaneling jurors for service, 28 U.S.C. §§ 1864-66. The Act also permits criminal defendants to move to dismiss the indictment or stay proceedings “on the ground of substantial failure to comply with the provisions of this title in selecting the grand or petit jury.” 28 U.S.C. § 1867(a).
Jackman attempted to obtain such relief in this case. On the morning that jury selection was to begin, Jackman’s counsel discovered that his venire contained one Hispanic and no African Americans. Counsel promptly made an oral motion objecting to selection of a jury and, according to Jackman’s brief, “was prepared, orally, to set forth a sworn statement of facts concerning the lack of black and Hispanics in the venire” in an effort to comply with the Act. The district court instructed him instead to file a written motion and then began the voir dire. Thereafter, Jackman filed a written motion within seven days of his first obtaining access to the juror questionnaires, which he asserts is the earliest he could have discovered a violation of the Act with diligence. The motion raised claims under the Act, the Fifth Amendment, and the Sixth Amendment. The district court rejected that part of the motion which relied on the Act as untimely.
The Act requires that a motion seeking a dismissal of the indictment or stay of the proceedings must be filed “before the voir dire examination begins, or within seven days after the defendant discovered or could have discovered, by the exercise of diligence, the grounds therefor, whichever is earlier.” 28 U.S.C. § 1867(a). The.statute also requires that the motion contain “a sworn statement of facts which, if true, would constitute a substantial failure to comply with the provisions of this title.” 28 U.S.C. § 1867(d).
Both Jackman’s oral and written motions were deficient under the Act, although for different reasons. His oral motion before voir dire complied with the timing requirements of the Act, but was substantively inadequate. The substantive defect is not, as the government contends, that Jackman failed to file a written motion. Oral testimony establishing noncompliance has been held sufficient. See United States v. Calabrese, 942 F.2d 218, 222 (3d Cir.1991) (forgiving lack of written statement when defendant presented sworn testimony of clerk about exclusionary practices). Rather, the defect is that, even if the district court had allowed Jackman to present his oral motion in full, his motion did not contain a “sworn statement of facts which, if true, would constitute a substantial failure to comply with the provisions of this title.” 28 U.S.C. § 1867(d). By his own admission, Jackman was prepared only to swear that minorities were underrepresented in his venire. This fact standing alone does not constitute a violation of the Act. Therefore, at the time of the oral motion before voir dire, Jackman could not make any allegation of statutory noncompliance.
After further investigation, Jackman did file a sworn statement of noneompliance in his written motion of September 20, 1993. Even assuming arguendo that this motion was filed seven days after he could have discovered noneompliance with diligence, it was untimely. The Act by its terms makes the beginning of voir dire the final deadline for filing a motion. The defendant must file *1250his motion either before voir dire or seven days after the violation is discovered or could have been discovered, “whichever is earlier.” 28 U.S.C. § 1867(a). Thus, the provision allowing for a motion seven days after discovery of irregularities is not a reprieve from the voir dire deadline, but an additional timing restriction.
Jackman’s very able attorney is not to be faulted for failing to make a timely and sufficient motion, toiling as he was under the resource constraints any appointed counsel faces. His efforts were not unreasonable under the circumstances. But the timing restrictions of § 1867(a) place an exacting duty on defendants to inquire about the adequacy of jury selection methods before voir dire. This case is not one in which the defendant was affirmatively denied the opportunity to develop a record of violations of the Act. Cf. Test v. United States, 420 U.S. 28, 30, 95 S.Ct. 749, 750-51, 42 L.Ed.2d 786 (1975) (per curiam) (holding denial of request to inspect jury lists to be reversible error). During the three months in which jury selection was delayed at his request, Jackman could have inquired into the post-Osorio selection processes used before the new plan was fully implemented. Jackman could also have reviewed the jury questionnaires from his venire upon their availability on September 10, made a preliminary inquiry of the interim procedures used by the jury clerk’s office, and filed a motion for continuance prior to the assembly of the venire for jury selection.
We have stated that district courts should liberally grant continuances when some evidence of impropriety in jury selection is proffered, United States v. Fernandez, 480 F.2d 726, 731 n. 7 (2d Cir.1973) (Friendly, C.J.), and I see the issue whether the failure to do so here was an abuse of discretion as somewhat close. Unlike the defendant in Fernandez, however, Jackman had no evidence of wayward procedures at the time of his oral motion. While it may generally be advisable for a district court to grant a continuance when the underrepresentation of minorities is as stark as it was on Jackman’s venire, I cannot say that Judge Covello in this instance, with a venire already assembled, abused his discretion in not delaying voir dire so that Jackman could gather evidence for his motion. See United States v. Whiting, 538 F.2d 220, 222 (8th Cir.1976) (finding no abuse of discretion for trial judge to deny continuance to defendant who received copy of jury panel six days prior to trial). Since he failed to make a sufficient motion before voir dire, Jackman forfeited his rights under the Act. See United States v. LaChance, 788 F.2d 856, 870 (2d Cir.) (finding motion insufficient for failure to demonstrate noncompliance), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 883, 107 S.Ct. 271, 93 L.Ed.2d 248 (1986).
If Jackman’s statutory challenge had not been procedurally barred, he likely would have prevailed on that claim. While Jack-man would have to show, inter alia, a substantial underrepresentation of a cognizable minority to prevail under the Sixth Amendment, a burden that I believe was not met here, his statutory remedy was not so limited. The Act offers relief for any substantial non-compliance with its provisions. 18 U.S.C. § 1867(a). One provision of the Act requires that a district’s procedures “shall ensure that ... each ... political subdivision within the district or division is substantially proportionally represented in the master jury wheel.” 28 U.S.C. § 1863(b)(3). In my view, the patent, non-random exclusion of Hartford and New Britain residents by the jury clerk’s use of a defective wheel would have sufficed to prove a violation of § 1863(b)(3), independent of the effect on the representation of racial minorities. Cf. United States v. Gregory, 730 F.2d 692, 699-700 (11th Cir.1984) (entertaining claim of violation of § 1863(b)(3) but finding no evidence of violation), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1208, 105 S.Ct. 1170, 84 L.Ed.2d 321 (1985); United States v. Foxworth, 599 F.2d 1, 4 (1st Cir.1979) (same).
Thus, this is not a case in which an unacceptable jury selection practice is without a remedy in the law. If Jackman had properly complied with statutory procedures, he very likely could have obtained the relief he seeks under the Jury Selection and Service Act.
II. Constitutional Claims
Turning now to the constitutional claims, I think the majority errs in its unprecedented *1251holding that a violation of the Sixth Amendment can occur with something less than a showing of substantial absolute disparity between a group’s representation in the jury wheel and its representation in the voting-age population. Without such a showing, the criminal defendant whose rights under the Sixth Amendment are at issue has not been wronged. If any wrong occurred in this case, recent caselaw tells us that it was to the African Americans and Hispanics who were excluded from jury service. That wrong, however, is not redressable under the Sixth Amendment; it is redressable, if at all, only as an equal protection claim under the Fifth or, in cases involving state jury selection, Fourteenth Amendment. Nevertheless, although Jackman could have done so, he raised no equal protection claim on behalf of those minority jurors.
A. Sixth Amendment
In Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357, 99 S.Ct. 664, 58 L.Ed.2d 579 (1979), the Supreme Court established a three-part prima, facie test for evaluating fair-cross-section claims. In such cases, the defendant must prove:
(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.
Id. at 364, 99 S.Ct. at 668. The defendant does not have to prove intentional discrimination. United States v. Biaggi, 909 F.2d 662, 678 (2d Cir.1990), cert. denied, 499 U.S. 904, 111 S.Ct. 1102, 113 L.Ed.2d 213 (1991). Once the defendant satisfies the prima facie test, the burden shifts to the State to justify its practice by “showing attainment of a fair cross section to be incompatible with a significant state interest.” Duren, 439 U.S. at 368, 99 S.Ct. at 671.
I agree with the majority that there is no colorable dispute in this case over the first and third prongs of the Duren test. As to the first prong, Jackman claims that African Americans and Hispanics were excluded, and they are unquestionably cognizable groups. As to the third prong, the testimony clearly establishes that, because of the continued practice of using the old wheel, the exclusion of the majority of the African American and Hispanic populations in the district by virtue of the omission of Hartford and New Britain residents was “systematic — that is, inherent in the particular jury-selection process utilized.” Id. at 366, 99 S.Ct. at 669.
As the majority correctly states, the controversy in this case solely concerns the second prong of Duren: whether “either or both of these two distinctive groups is ‘significantly] underrepresent[ed]’ in the jury selection process.” Ante at 1246 (brackets in original) (quoting Biaggi, 909 F.2d at 677). We have held that the determinant of under-representation for Sixth Amendment purposes is the absolute disparity test. Biaggi, 909 F.2d at 678; Jenkins, 496 F.2d at 66; cf. Duren, 439 U.S. at 364-66, 99 S.Ct. at 668-70 (finding “gross discrepancy” of roughly 30% between representation of women in population and jury wheel to satisfy second prong of test); Peter A. Detre, Note, A Proposal for Measuring Underrepresentation in the Composition of the Jury Wheel, 103 Yale L.J. 1913, 1919 (1994) (“While not explicitly endorsing any of the mathematical tests, the [Duren] Court seems to have considered only absolute disparity.”). Under the absolute disparity test, the court looks to the percentage difference between the group’s representation in the jury wheel and its representation in the population. See Jenkins, 496 F.2d at 65.
Since no single jury wheel was used as the source of Jackman’s venire, I agree with the majority that we must determine underrep-resentation by examining a weighted “functional wheel,” which reflects the fact that 78 of the 100 names from which Jackman’s veni-re was selected were drawn from the defective pre-Osorio wheel and 22 of the 100 were drawn from the post-Osorio wheel. African Americans and Hispanics comprised 3.8% and 1.7% of the functional wheel respectively, compared to a representation of 6.3% and 5.1% in the voting age population of the Hartford District as of the 1990 census. *1252Thus, the absolute disparity of representation in the wheel versus the voting age population was 2.5% for African Americans and 3.4% for Hispanics. In Biaggi, we found disparities of 3.6% for African Americans and 4.7% for Hispanics, both higher than those here, to be insubstantial. 909 F.2d at 677, 678; see also United States v. McAnderson, 914 F.2d 934, 941 (7th Cir.1990) (finding absolute disparity of 8% de minimis); United States v. Pepe, 747 F.2d 632, 649 (11th Cir.1984) (7.6% de minimis); United States v. Butler, 611 F.2d 1066, 1069-70 (5th Cir.) (8.69% and 9.14% de minimis), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 830, 101 S.Ct. 97, 66 L.Ed.2d 35 (1980). Moreover, in Biaggi, we examined the “absolute impact”, see Detre, supra, at 1917, of the disparity on the average venire and found it insignificant under the Sixth Amendment that two African Americans and two to three Hispanics would have to be added to a venire of 60 persons to make it representative, 909 F.2d at 678. Here, only one to two African Americans and two Hispanics would have to be added to such a venire to make it mirror the population. The majority nonetheless finds that the low levels of disparity present in this case satisfy Du-ren’s second prong.
This conclusion is. at odds with every decision in every circuit applying the Duren test. Although the Supreme Court has declined to announce precise mathematical standards for determining underrepresentation, Alexander v. Louisiana, 405 U.S. 625, 630 & n. 9, 92 S.Ct. 1221, 1225, 31 L.Ed.2d 536 (1972) (equal protection claim), the Third Circuit, after recently surveying the relevant cases, did not list or mention any decision in which a court has concluded that the underrepre-sentation of any one group is substantial when the absolute disparity was less than 10%. Ramseur v. Beyer, 983 F.2d 1215, 1231 (3d Cir.1992) (en banc), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 2433, 124 L.Ed.2d 653 (1993). I have discovered no case before or since Ramseur holding a lesser disparity cognizable, and the majority cites none. In fact, prior to Ramseur four circuits have expressly indicated that an absolute disparity of less than ten percent does not constitute substantial underrepresentation. See McAnderson, 914 F.2d at 941; United States v. Rodriguez, 776 F.2d 1509, 1511 (11th Cir.1985); United States v. Clifford, 640 F.2d 150, 155 (8th Cir.1981); United States v. Test, 550 F.2d 577, 587 (10th Cir.1976). The Ninth Circuit has rejected the notion that showings of slight underrepresentation of multiple groups can be aggregated to show a fair-cross-section violation. See United States v. Suttiswad, 696 F.2d 645, 649 (9th Cir.1982) (holding that absolute disparities of “2.8% for Blacks, 7.7% for [Hispanics], and 4.7% for Asians” collectively do not constitute under-representation since “nonwhites” are not a cognizable group). While the majority, correctly in my view, does not seek to justify its conclusion by combining nonwhites, it is worth noting that 5.9% combined disparity in the representation of African Americans and Hispanics here does not even approach the 15.2% combined disparity rejected in Suttis-wad.
I cannot agree with either reason the majority gives for its unprecedented decision that disparities of 2.5% and 3.4% constitute substantial underrepresentation under the Sixth Amendment. The majority’s first reason is that the jury selection practice used here is “ ‘less benign than use of voter registration lists.’ ” Ante at 1247 (quoting Biaggi, 909 F.2d at 678.) I find this rationale troubling. First, it elevates dicta in Biaggi into an element of the Sixth Amendment fair-cross-section test without any support for the “benign method” requirement in Duren or any other ease. Second, the majority opinion does not define its “benign” standard other than by allowing for (1) the use of voter registration lists and, perhaps, (2) “mere inadvertence.” Ante at 1247. While finding the circumstances here “far less benign” than the use of voter registration lists in Biaggi or the accidental omission of Hartford and New Britain residents in Osorio, ante at 1247, the majority seems to acknowledge that in this case there is no evidence of intentional discrimination, ante at 1244^45 (the exclusion of African Americans and Hispanics, while “systematic,”. was “perhaps unintentional”), or even a deliberate flouting of the Osorio court’s order. It concedes that “[i]t was perhaps a defensible decision not to discard the names already drawn from the [pre-Oso-*1253rio ] list and entered in the jury clerk’s computer, names that had taken considerable citizen and staff time to assemble.” Ante at 1244-45. In essence, the majority’s “benign method” standard is a negligence standard: the jury clerk failed to understand the import of Osorio and to exercise due care to ensure that its picking list adequately reflected the representation of African Americans and Hispanics in the community.
Finally, even if negligence somehow belongs in Sixth Amendment analysis, the majority fails to explain why governmental negligence compels us to dispense with the standards for determining substantial underrep-resentation that every circuit has accepted. Unlike proof of substantial underrepresentation in the equal protection context, which is used to create a rebuttable inference of discriminatory purpose in jury selection, see Castaneda v. Partida, 430 U.S. 482, 494-95, 97 S.Ct. 1272, 1280, 51 L.Ed.2d 498 (1977), the requirement of substantial underrepre-sentation in the second prong of Duren serves a function entirely independent of policing the selection methods used: it indicates whether there has been an impairment of the defendant’s rights sufficient to justify the reversal of his conviction. If the representation of a group in a jury wheel, whatever its deficiencies, is “fair and reasonable in relation to the number of such persons in the community,” Duren, 439 U.S. at 364, 99 S.Ct. at 668, then there is no violation of the defendant’s Sixth Amendment rights even if the deficiencies result from governmental negligence or something “far less benign” than the use of voter registration lists. I would not endorse the recognition of a Sixth Amendment violation even in the face of deliberate governmental misconduct, much less the mere misfeasance that occurred here, if substantial underrepresentation could not be proven. The wrong of deliberate misconduct would have to be addressed under a Fifth Amendment claim.
The rule that emerges from the majority’s opinion is that even a slight disparity may constitute a Sixth Amendment violation if some defect in the jury clerk’s implementation of the selection plan contributes to that disparity. The majority shifts the focus of Sixth Amendment inquiry from the rights of the defendant to the proper functioning of the jury selection process, broadening considerably the type of practices that might constitute Sixth Amendment violations. But the majority fails to analyze what relief is appropriate under the new regime; it merely invokes the rule of automatic reversal, which is appropriate for substantial violations of a defendant’s rights. If the majority’s concern is systemic, it ought to consider other systemic interests, most notably society’s interest in the finality of convictions and economy of judicial resources. Where there was no deliberate misconduct and no colorable effect on defendant’s rights, why punish the government and the public by overturning this valid bank robbery conviction and imposing a retrial? Retrials are not only costly but highly problematic because witnesses may become unavailable or their memories may fade over time. Congress, the appropriate body to engage in the kind of policy weighing implicated by the majority’s decision, struck a better balance in the Jury Selection and Service Act. It made relief available for a broad array of procedural defaults, but it limited that relief to defendants who make sufficient motions prior to voir dire, thus giving the district court the opportunity to arrest the proceedings at an early stage and thereby avoid the social cost of a trial that might be overturned on appeal. Finally, I note that the systemic interest that, according to the majority, will be served by a reversal is particularly slim in this ease, since the district court moved swiftly to correct the problems caused by the jury elerk’s interim procedures and to ensure that all future veni-res would be drawn from the post-Osorio wheel.
The second reason the majority advances to justify its dramatic departure from the accepted standards of underrepresentation is that the absolute disparity approach is “of questionable validity when applied to an underrepresented group that is a small percentage of the total population.” Ante at 1247. This statement is sharply at odds with the more widely held view, which we endorsed in Jenkins, 496 F.2d at 65-66 (rejecting comparative disparity test), that the absolute disparity test is appropriate in such circum*1254stances because it does not overstate the actual effect on the venire of underrepresentation of small groups. See Pepe, 747 F.2d at 649 n. 18; United States v. Hafen, 726 F.2d 21, 24 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 466 U.S. 962, 104 S.Ct. 2179, 80 L.Ed.2d 561 (1984); United States v. Whitley, 491 F.2d 1248, 1249 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 416 U.S. 990, 94 S.Ct. 2399, 40 L.Ed.2d 769 (1974).
Even assuming that we should adopt a statistical measure that takes the size of the group into account, the majority fails to demonstrate that substantial underrepresentation occurred in this case. One measure that accounts for the size of the group in question is “disparity of risk,” which is the percentage difference between the probabilities of drawing an unrepresentative jury from the actual wheel used and from a wheel that exactly mirrors the population. See Detre, supra, at 1930-1938. The majority provides some statistics on a variant of the disparity of risk test, ante at 1247 n. 5, but fails to provide any standard by which we can judge whether the probabilities it generates are constitutionally meaningful. One commentator has calculated that a disparity of risk standard of 37 percent is essentially equivalent to the absolute disparity standard of 10 percent commonly employed by the courts. Detre, supra, at 1936. But, as calculated by amici in this case, the disparity of risk of underrep-resentation from use of the functional wheel is 17.2% for African Americans and 27.6% for Hispanics. Thus, even under a disparity of risk measure which accords with generally accepted norms of underrepresentation and does not treat small groups differently, there is no Sixth Amendment violation in this case.1
The real question here is not whether the systematic exclusion of groups that represent a small part of a local population may be constitutionally significant, but whether the Sixth Amendment provides a remedy for that exclusion. The Sixth Amendment protects a defendant’s rights; it guarantees a venire drawn from a substantially representative jury wheel as one of the fundamental assurances of a fair trial. The gravamen of the majority’s concern, I suspect, is not that Jackman was deprived of his rights, for any such deprivation was truly de minimis. Rather, it is that large segments of the African-American and Hispanic populations were systematically denied the right to be eligible for jury service even after the problem was identified in Osorio. But the unequal treatment of minorities, absent an effect on the defendant’s rights, is simply not within the purview of the Sixth Amendment. If such claims are constitutionally cognizable, they must be so under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments and not the Sixth.
B. The Fifth Amendment
The Supreme Court has recently established that criminal defendants, regardless of then- race, may also have third-party standing to assert the rights of prospective jurors. Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. 400, 413-14, 111 S.Ct. 1364, 1372-73, 113 L.Ed.2d 411 (1991). In the context of peremptory challenges excluding minorities from service on a particular petit jury, discriminatory intent must be proven. Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 93-94, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 1721-22, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986). But it is not so clear that discriminatory intent need be proven when a defendant, as a third-party proponent of the rights of minority jurors, challenges the exclusion of minorities from all jury service. Whereas no one has a right to serve on a particular petit jury, a defendant could cite Powers, 499 U.S. at 407, 111 S.Ct. at 1368-69 (“[Wjith the *1255exception of voting, for most citizens the honor and privilege of jury duty is their most significant opportunity to participate in the democratic process.”), to argue that the right to serve on juries at all is a fundamental right akin to the right to vote, cf. Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964). If jury service is held to be a fundamental right, state action infringing that right receives heightened scrutiny regardless of discriminatory intent. Cf. City of New York v. United States Dep’t of Commerce, 34 F.3d 1114, 1129-30 (2d Cir.1994) (prima facie case of violation of fundamental right to vote may be made without showing of discriminatory intent).
I mention this novel equal protection argument, which was not raised by Jackman here or in the court below, not to endorse it, but only to show that the underrepresentation of small groups is not properly considered under the Sixth Amendment. I do not mean to imply that I would recognize such a fundamental right to jury service if the claim were properly before this court. Unenumerated fundamental constitutional rights should never be lightly inferred. Nevertheless, a Fifth Amendment claim, not a Sixth Amendment claim, is the proper posture in which to present this question to us. We could then squarely face the issue of whether the under-representation of small groups in jury wheels violates the Constitution even absent intentional discrimination or an effect on a defendant’s rights.
In conclusion, Jackman seems to have had an available remedy under the Jury Selection and Service Act and a colorable argument for relief under the Fifth Amendment. Given that Jackman is proeedurally barred from pressing those claims, we should not alter our Sixth Amendment jurisprudence to cover the claim Jackman does bring. I therefore respectfully dissent.

. In any event, there does not appear to be a compelling reason for substituting the disparity of risk measure for the straightforward absolute disparity measure for determining Sixth Amendment violations. The primary defect of the latter test — understatement of the effects of exclusion on small groups, with a concomitant increase in the chance that such groups will be underrepresented in the defendant's petit jury — is not a relevant factor under the Sixth Amendment. The argument for using the disparity of risk test is much stronger in the equal protection context, and that test may even be superior, or a useful supplement, to statistical decision theory, which we endorsed in Alston v. Manson, 791 F.2d 255 (2d Cir.1986), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 1084, 107 S.Ct. 1285, 94 L.Ed.2d 143 (1987), for equal protection claims. See Detre, supra, at 1926. I see no inconsistency in having distinct tests for the two types of claims, given that the "substantial underrepresentation” element has different purposes under the Sixth Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause, as explained above.