State v. AdamsState v. Adams
This criminal appeal from a female defendant‘s conviction for solicitation with intent to commit unnatural carnal copulation concerns the State‘s use of its peremptory challenges to exclude males from the jury panel, which defendant contends is a violation of her Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment Rights.
Defendant claims she was denied a fair trial by a jury drawn from a fair cross-section of the population and equal protection of the law because the prosecution used its peremptory challenges to exclude men from her jury. We disagree and affirm defendant‘s conviction because the Sixth Amendment does not require a petit jury to reflect a cross-section of the community,
FACTS
Defendant, Sandra Adams, was charged by bill of information with violating
Following the presentation of overwhelming evidence establishing defendant‘s guilt for the offense charged, the jury convicted defendant of violating
ASSIGNMENT OF ERROR
Defendant claims that her Equal Protection Rights have been violated as gender is an improper criterion upon which the state may exercise its peremptory challenges. In support of her argument, defendant relies upon
These provisions are directed to the composition of the jury venire from which the petit jury is eventually selected, mandating that an entire class of individuals cannot be excluded from a jury venire. The rule is often referred to as the fair cross-section requirement of the Sixth Amendment. Defendant‘s appeal, however, questions whether her constitutional and/or statutory rights are violated when the prosecution uses its peremptory challenges to exclude all the men from her petit jury after the jury venire is chosen from a cross-section of the community.
As a general rule, a defendant has no right to trial by any particular jury or juror, but only to a trial by a competent, impartial jury. State v. Stephenson, 291 So.2d 767, 768 (La.1974); State v. Simms, 465 So.2d 769 (La.App. 5th Cir.1985). Consequently, after the jury venire has been chosen from a cross-section of the community, the fair cross-section principle has never been extended to invalidate a petit
The United States Supreme Court in Lockhart v. McCree, 476 U.S. 162, 106 S.Ct. 1758, 1764-1765, 90 L.Ed.2d 137 (1986), refused to extend the fair cross-section requirement to petit jury selections:
...We have never invoked the fair cross-section principle to invalidate the use of either for-cause or peremptory challenges to prospective jurors, or to require petit juries, as opposed to jury panels or venires, to reflect the composition of the community at large. See Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357, 363-364, 99 S.Ct. 664, 668, 58 L.Ed.2d 579 (1979); Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 538, 95 S.Ct. 692, 701-02, 42 L.Ed.2d 690 (1975) (“[W]e impose no requirement that petit juries actually chosen must mirror the community and reflect the various distinctive groups in the population“); cf. Batson v. Kentucky [476] U.S. [79], [84], n. 4, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 1716, n. 4, 90 L.Ed.2d [69] (1986) (expressly declining to address “fair cross-section” challenge to discriminatory use of peremptory challenges). The limited scope of the fair cross-section requirement is a direct and inevitable consequence of the practical impossibility of providing each criminal defendant with a truly “representative” petit jury, see id., at [85], n. 6, 106 S.Ct., at 1717, n. 6, ... See United States v. Childress, 715 F.2d 1313 (CA8 1983) (en banc), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 1063, 104 S.Ct. 744, 79 L.Ed.2d 202 (1984); Pope v. United States, 372 F.2d 710, 725 (CA8 1967) (Blackmun, J.) (”The point at which an accused is entitled to a fair cross-section of the community is when the names are put in the box from which the panels are drawn “) vacated on other grounds, 392 U.S. 651, 88 S.Ct. 2145, 20 L.Ed.2d 1317 (1968). 106 S.Ct. at 1764-1765. (emphasis added)
Likewise, we reject defendant‘s suggestion that the fair-cross section requirement of the Sixth Amendment should be extended to the selection of petit juries. This determination, however, does not end our inquiry into whether the State‘s exercise of its peremptory challenges to eliminate the male jurors from the female defendant‘s petit jury constituted prohibited discrimination, as the State‘s privilege to strike individual jurors is also subject to the commands of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 1718, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986).
Because a peremptory challenge is the statutory right to reject a given juror without disclosure of reason or motive, State v. Richmond, 284 So.2d 317, 326 (La.1973), a prosecutor is ordinarily entitled to exercise peremptory challenges “for any reason at all, as long as that reason is related to his view concerning the outcome” of the case to be tried. Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712 at 1712, 1719, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986) [recognized the prosecutor‘s historical privilege to utilize his peremptory challenges free of judicial controls, 106 S.Ct. at 1720]; See also, State v. Melton, 296 So.2d 280, 282 (La.1974) [courts will not look behind the exercise of peremptory challenges for motive]; State v. Amphy, 259 La. 161, 249 So.2d 560, 564 (1971), cert. den., Amphy v. Louisiana, 405 U.S. 1074, 92 S.Ct. 1502, 31 L.Ed.2d 807 (1972). Based upon the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause, however, the United States Supreme Court in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), set a limitation on the State‘s free use of its peremptory challenges. Batson promulgated that prosecutors were forbidden from challenging potential jurors solely on account of their race, on the assumption that black jurors as a group would be unable to impartially consider the State‘s evidence against a black defendant. This jurisprudential rule has been codified in Louisiana. By Acts of 1986, No. 323, the Louisiana Legislature amended
Cases involving exclusions from jury service based upon race are considered to be in a class by themselves. Peters v. Kiff, 407 U.S. 493, 92 S.Ct. 2163, 2170, 33 L.Ed. 2d 83 (1972) (White, J. Concurring). Thus, although we do not applaud the striking of jurors for any reason relating to group classifications, we decline to extend the rule of Batson beyond instances of purposeful racial discrimination in the selection of petit jurys. Consequently, this case falls under the general rule that a prosecutor is entitled to exercise peremptory challenges for any reason, as long as that reason is related to his view concerning the outcome of the case to be tried, Batson v. Kentucky, 106 S.Ct. at 1719, and the State‘s motive for exercising its peremptory challenges is not subject to judicial review.3 State v. Rossi, 273 So.2d 265, 266 (La.1973) [the State‘s use of its peremptory challenges to exclude persons of Italian ancestry from serving on the petit jury was not subject to judicial review]; State v. Veal, 296 So.2d 262, 264 (La.1974).
Even though defendant‘s petit jury may have lost a distinct quality or flavor by the lack of interplay or influence from male jurors, see Peters v. Kiff, 92 S.Ct. at 2169, n. 12, defendant has made no showing that she was deprived of a trial before an unbiased jury or was forced to accept an obnoxious juror. State v. Simms, 465 So.2d at 780. We, therefore, find defendant‘s Fourteenth Amendment rights were not violated by the State‘s exercising its peremptory challenges to exclude males from the jury panel.
Accordingly, as there is no showing that the trial court abused its discretion in denying defendant‘s motion for mistrial and as the evidence presented at trial overwhelmingly proved defendant‘s guilt for the offense charged, we affirm defendant‘s conviction. All costs on appeal are assessed against defendant.
AFFIRMED.
PLOTKIN, J., dissents with reasons.
PLOTKIN, Judge, dissenting with reasons.
I respectfully dissent.
The issue at bar is whether the State may exercise its peremptory challenges in a sexually discriminatory manner by excusing all males from the jury when the defendant is female.
The State admits that it excluded all men from the petit jury because they would tend to “trivialize” the female defendant‘s sex crime of solicitation with intent to commit unnatural oral copulation. The defendant contends that Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), applies to gender discrimination in jury selection.
Batson held that the equal protection clause forbids the prosecutor from challenging potential jurors solely on account of their race or on the assumption that black jurors as a group will be unable to consider the State‘s case against a black defendant impartially.
When the State used its peremptory challenges to exclude all males from the petit jury because of their sex, it violated the female defendant‘s right to an impartial jury drawn from a cross section of the community under the sixth and fourteenth amendment and