UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Sandy TOWNSLEY, Appellant. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Ernest (Pat) GANDY, Appellant. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Sorkis WEBBE, Jr., Appellant.
Nos. 86-1045, 86-1075 and 86-1188.
United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.
Submitted July 12, 1988. Decided Sept. 16, 1988.
856 F.2d 1189
The district court, relying on a magistrate‘s2 report and recommendation, rejected Morgan‘s claim that the Commission improperly considered unsubstantiated information in his presentence investigation report (PSI) concerning the amount of heroin involved and the duration of the conspiracy. We affirm the district court. In our view, the record before the Commission supports its view that Morgan distributed more than the equivalent of three kilograms of pure heroin. Because there was information presented at trial and confirmed by the presentence investigation that supports the Commission‘s decision to increase Morgan‘s score, we cannot find the Commission‘s decision arbitrary, capricious, or an abuse of discretion. See Richardson v. United States Parole Comm‘n, 729 F.2d 1154, 1156 (8th Cir.1984).
We find Morgan‘s second argument, that the application of the revised parole guidelines violates the ex post facto clause, without merit. See Yamamoto v. United States Parole Comm‘n, 794 F.2d 1295, 1300 (8th Cir.1986); see also Miller v. Florida, 482 U.S. 423, 107 S.Ct. 2446, 2453, 96 L.Ed.2d 351 (1987).
AFFIRMED.
Burton H. Shostak, Clayton, Mo., and Irl B. Baris, St. Louis, Mo., for appellant.
James E. Crowe, Jr., Asst. U.S. Atty., for appellee.
Before LAY, Chief Judge, HEANEY, Circuit Judge, HENLEY, Senior Circuit Judge, McMILLIAN, ARNOLD, JOHN R. GIBSON, FAGG, BOWMAN, WOLLMAN, MAGILL, and BEAM, Circuit Judges, En Banc.
BOWMAN, Circuit Judge.
This Court granted rehearing en banc on the narrow question whether in the circumstances of this case Townsley and Webbe have standing to challenge the alleged improper use of peremptory challenges by the prosecution to strike black persons from the petit jury. For the reasons set forth in the dissent from the panel opinion on this issue, see 843 F.2d at 1088-89, we hold that Townsley and Webbe do not have such standing and are not entitled to join in Gandy‘s Batson challenge. We add only that the present dissenting opinion‘s grandiloquent attempt to liken Townsley and Webbe to white civil rights workers and other whites who have faced racial animus because of either their efforts to help blacks or their lawful association with blacks, see post at 1193-1194, appears to us to be strangely divorced from the facts of this case. Townsley and Webbe are hardly civil rights workers. They have been convicted of vote fraud, a crime that strikes at the heart of the democratic process. The evidence of their guilt is overwhelming. Their association with blacks, insofar as revealed by the record in this case, has consisted of enlisting them in criminal pursuits. There is simply no factual basis for the argument that the prosecution‘s use of its peremptory strikes to eliminate black jurors may have violated the rights of these white defendants under the Equal Protection Clause.
In any event, the Batson rule is clear and straightforward: “To establish [a prima facie] case, the defendant first must show that he is a member of a cognizable racial group, . . . and that the prosecutor has exercised peremptory challenges to remove from the venire members of the defendant‘s race.” Batson, 476 U.S. at 96, 106 S.Ct. at 1723. Other courts have had no difficulty in following this rule, see United States v. Angiulo, 847 F.2d 956, 984 (1st Cir.1988) (nonblack defendants could not complain about the government‘s use of peremptory challenges to exclude black members from the jury), and neither do we.
Townsley and Webbe also assert that they are entitled to relief under the
It should also be emphasized that in holding that petit juries must be drawn from a source fairly representative of the community we impose no requirement that petit juries actually chosen
must mirror the community and reflect the various distinctive groups in the population. Defendants are not entitled to a jury of any particular composition, Fay v. New York, 332 U.S. 261, 284 [67 S.Ct. 1613, 1625-26, 91 L.Ed. 2043] (1947); Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U.S., [404] at 413 [92 S.Ct., 1628 at 1634, 32 L.Ed.2d 184 (1972)] (plurality opinion); but the jury wheels, pools of names, panels, or venires from which juries are drawn must not systematically exclude distinctive groups in the community and thereby fail to be reasonably representative thereof.
419 U.S. at 538, 95 S.Ct. at 701-02.
Similarly, the opinion of the Court in Batson, while basing relief on the Equal Protection Clause and expressing no view on the merits of the petitioner‘s
Indeed, it would be impossible to apply a concept of proportional representation to the petit jury in view of the heterogeneous nature of our society. Such impossibility is illustrated by the Court‘s holding that a jury of six persons is not unconstitutional. Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78, 102-103, [90 S.Ct. 1893, 1907, 26 L.Ed.2d 446] (1970).
476 U.S. at 85-86 n. 6, 106 S.Ct. at 1716-17 n. 6.
Moreover, within a week after the Batson decision, the Court in Lockhart v. McCree, 476 U.S. 162, 106 S.Ct. 1758, 90 L.Ed.2d 137 (1986), reaffirmed that the fair-cross-section requirement does not extend to petit juries:
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, 668-69, 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, ante, at 84-85, n. 4 [106 S.Ct. at 1716 n. 4] (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 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). We remain convinced that an extension of the fair-cross-section requirement to petit juries would be unworkable and unsound, and we decline McCree‘s invitation to adopt such an extension.
476 U.S. at 173-74, 106 S.Ct. at 1764-65 (footnote omitted). It is difficult to see how the Supreme Court could express itself with greater clarity.
We conclude that neither the Equal Protection Clause nor the
Accordingly, the convictions of Townsley and Webbe on Counts I and IV are affirmed. The sentences imposed thereon are vacated and the case is remanded to the District Court for resentencing in view of the panel‘s reversal of the convictions on Count III, see 843 F.2d at 1080-81, and for further proceedings under Batson as to Gandy alone. We do not retain jurisdiction upon remand and any subsequent appeal may be had as provided by law.
After the venire panel was reduced to forty-seven persons through strikes for cause, the government was permitted twelve peremptory challenges and the defendants twenty to arrive at the final petit jury of twelve with three alternates. Twelve black persons were among the forty-seven member venire panel. The government exercised its peremptory challenges first, using ten of its twelve challenges to remove black veniremen. The defendants struck one black venireman. The final black person served as an alternate juror and was excused prior to deliberations. Only defendant Gandy is black. However, all the defendants moved to strike the jury panel on the ground that the government unconstitutionally excluded black jurors in violation of the
At the time of trial, Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), was pending in the Supreme Court. The government only generally stated “that there were factors affecting . . . [its] exercise of the peremptory strikes going well beyond any consideration of race.” The district court denied defendants’ motion to strike the jury panel and denied defendants’ subsequent request that the court order the government to state on the record its reasons for the peremptory challenges to black venire persons. In light of the intervening decision in Batson, which is applicable to this case, Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314, 107 S.Ct. 708, 716, 93 L.Ed.2d 649 (1987), I would remand this case for further proceedings.
Batson involved a black defendant tried in state court who challenged the prosecution‘s use of peremptory strikes to exclude blacks from the petit jury, which ultimately convicted him. Batson, 476 U.S. at 82, 106 S.Ct. at 1714-15. The Court granted Batson relief under the equal protection clause of the
To establish a prima facie case under the new rule announced in Batson, the defendant first must show that he is a member of a cognizable racial group, and that the prosecutor has exercised peremptory challenges to remove from the venire members of the defendant‘s race. Second, the defendant is entitled to rely on the fact, as to which there can be no dispute, that peremptory challenges constitute a jury selection practice that permits “those to discriminate who are of a mind to discriminate.” Finally, the defendant must show that these facts and any other relevant circumstances raise an inference that the prosecutor used that practice to exclude the veniremen from the petit jury on account of their race. 476 U.S. at 96, 106 S.Ct. at 1722-23 (citations omitted). The only issue on which this court has granted en banc review is
The majority rejects the challenge of defendants Townsley and Webbe to the composition of the petit jury because those defendants are both members of the white race. See Batson, 476 U.S. at 96, 106 S.Ct. at 1723 (“To establish [a prima facie] case, the defendant must first show that he is a member of a cognizable racial group, and that the prosecutor has exercised peremptory challenges to remove from the venire members of the defendant‘s race.“); United States v. Vaccaro, 816 F.2d 443, 457 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 914, 108 S.Ct. 295, 98 L.Ed.2d 220 (1987) (white defendant lacks standing to raise Batson‘s equal protection prohibition to striking of black jurors); United States v. Sgro, 816 F.2d 30, 33 (1st Cir.1987), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 1063, 108 S.Ct. 1021, 98 L.Ed.2d 986 (1988). However, should Gandy make the necessary showing of discriminatory use of peremptory challenges under Batson, it necessarily follows that Webbe and Townsley were treated differently because they were tried together with a black defendant. Such a result is repugnant to the Constitution. See Palmore v. Sidoti, 466 U.S. 429, 430-34, 104 S.Ct. 1879, 1880-83, 80 L.Ed.2d 421 (1984) (where the white mother of a minor child was deprived of custody because she chose to live with a black man); see also United States v. Brown, 817 F.2d 674, 675-76 (10th Cir.1987) (the court held that the prosecutor improperly exercised his peremptory challenges to strike black jurors because defendant‘s attorney was a prominent black political figure. No mention of defendant‘s race was made in the opinion although a prior opinion indicated he was black. United States v. Brown, 770 F.2d 912, 913 (10th Cir.1985), rev‘d sub nom. Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314, 107 S.Ct. 708, 93 L.Ed.2d 649 (1987)).
The dissent to the panel opinion, upon which the majority now relies, contends that it “cannot be argued seriously that Townsley and Webbe suffered any prejudice from the racial composition of the petit jury.” United States v. Townsley, 843 F.2d 1070, 1088 (8th Cir.1988) (Bowman, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).2 Even assuming that a showing of prejudice is necessary, the majority‘s hyperbole bespeaks a vision of American culture and history unclouded by reality. In the civil rights movement of the 1960‘s white civil rights workers faced the same racial animus as their black coworkers and in some instances died for their beliefs. See, e.g., United States v. Price, 383 U.S. 787, 86 S.Ct. 1152, 16 L.Ed.2d 267 (1966) (murder of civil rights workers Michael Henry Schwerner, James Earl Chaney and Andrew Goodman); Posey v. United States, 416 F.2d 545, 548 (5th Cir.1969) (same), cert. denied, 397 U.S. 946, 90 S.Ct. 964, 25 L.Ed.2d 127 (1970); Liuzzo v. United States, 485 F.Supp. 1274, 1275-76 (E.D.Mich.1980) (murder of civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo by four members of the Ku Klux Klan).
Whites have been subjected to discrimination in housing because of their marriages to blacks. New York v. Davis, 411 F.2d 750, 752 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 856, 90 S.Ct. 119, 24 L.Ed.2d 105 (1969). Likewise, biracial couples have been discriminated against in child custody decisions. Palmore, 466 U.S. at 431, 104 S.Ct. at 1881. Finally, whites have been subjected to criminal violence and terrorism because of their association with blacks unrelated to civil rights activities. United States v. Woods, 780 F.2d 955, 956-59 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 476 U.S. 1184, 106 S.Ct. 2920, 91 L.Ed.2d 549 (1986). This cursory outline of cases is by no means exhaustive. This brief summary is offered to counter the myopic view that a white person cannot be the subject of racial discrimination because of his association with a black person.
Just as the white mother in Palmore was permitted by a unanimous court to challenge, on equal protection grounds, the state court‘s custody decision based on her marriage to a black man, Palmore, 466 U.S. at 432-33, 104 S.Ct. at 1882-82, I would allow Webbe and Townsley standing to raise a Batson challenge. The record below permits the conclusion that Webbe and Townsley may have been the victims of a discriminatory use of peremptory challenges because of their association with the two black defendants.
I conclude, therefore, that Webbe and Townsley have standing to join in Gandy‘s Batson challenge, and would remand the case to the district court for further proceedings.
Because the panel in this case granted relief to Townsley and Webbe under Batson‘s equal protection analysis, it was unnecessary to consider whether the appellants were entitled to relief under the
The
In United States v. Childress, 715 F.2d 1313 (8th Cir.1983) (en banc), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 1063, 104 S.Ct. 744, 79 L.Ed.2d 202 (1984), this court decided that in order to successfully challenge the prosecutor‘s peremptory strikes under the
Monica STONER, Appellant, v. STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellee.
No. 87-5439.
United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.
Submitted June 13, 1988. Decided Sept. 19, 1988.
