WILLIAMS v. ILLINOIS
No. 83-5785
Supreme Court of Illinois
981
No. 83-5785. WILLIAMS v. ILLINOIS. Sup. Ct. Ill.; No. 83-5966. DIXON v. ILLINOIS. App. Ct. Ill., 1st Dist.; and No. 83-6199. YATES v. ILLINOIS. Sup. Ct. Ill. Certiorari denied. Reported below: No. 83-5785, 97 Ill. 2d 252, 454 N. E. 2d 220; No. 83-5966, 105 Ill. App. 3d 340, 434 N. E. 2d 369; No. 83-6199, 98 Ill. 2d 502, 456 N. E. 2d 1369.
JUSTICE MARSHALL, with whom JUSTICE BRENNAN joins, dissenting.
Adhering to my view that the death penalty is under all circumstances cruel and unusual punishment forbidden by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, I would vacate the judgments of the Supreme Court of Illinois and the Appellate Court of Illinois insofar as they left undisturbed the death sentences imposed in these three cases. Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 231 (1976) (MARSHALL, J., dissenting). However, even if I believed that capital punishment were constitutional under certain circumstances, I would vote to grant these petitions because they present a substantial constitutional challenge to the Illinois state‘s attorneys’ practice of using peremptory challenges to exclude Negro jurors from participating in capital cases.
Hernando Williams, Wendell Dixon, and Lonnie Yates are Negroes. In unrelated indictments, the people of Illinois charged each of these men with serious felonies, punishable by death under Illinois law. Each was tried by jury, and each now claims that the prosecution violated the Federal Constitution by using peremptory challenges to remove Negroes from the jury venire.1 In petitioner Dixon‘s case, 20% of the jury venire were Negroes. The prosecution used five of seven peremptory challenges to exclude the Negro members from the venire. An all-white jury then convicted Dixon and sentenced him to death. In petitioner Williams’ case, 22% of the venire were Negroes. The prosecution used 11 of its 20 peremptory challenges to exclude Negroes, and an all-white jury sentenced Williams to death. In petitioner Yates’ case, the record does not indicate what percentage of the
The claim raised in these petitions is distressingly familiar. Whenever a Negro defendant is charged with a capital offense, there is a substantial chance that the prosecution will employ its peremptory challenges to remove Negroes and other minorities from the jury panel. See Gilliard v. Mississippi, 464 U. S. 867, 867-868, and n. 3 (1983) (MARSHALL, J., dissenting) (listing cases in 19 different jurisdictions raising the issue since 1979). Illinois provides a striking, but by no means isolated, illustration of the dimensions of the problem. Since 1959, the Supreme Court of Illinois has reviewed at least 33 cases in which criminal defendants have alleged prosecutorial misuse of peremptory challenges to exclude Negro jurors. See People v. Payne, 99 Ill. 2d 135, 152-153, 457 N. E. 2d 1202, 1210-1211 (1983) (Simon, J., dissenting) (list of cases). Petitioners in these three cases stand at the end of a long line of Negro criminal defendants who claim that the State of Illinois has denied them trial by a fair cross-section of the community.
The intentional exclusion of Negro jurors is particularly pronounced in capital cases in Illinois. Since the enactment of the latest Illinois Death Act, 29 juries have been empaneled to sentence Negro defendants in capital cases. Nineteen of these juries were all-white, and five had only one Negro juror. Illinois Coalition Against the Death Penalty, Death Sentences in Illinois (July 31, 1983). It is simply inconceivable that the racial composition of these juries was the result of statistical anomaly. According to the most recent census figures, 14.65% of the Illinois population is Negro.2 If the jury-selection process in Illinois were completely race-blind, roughly 17% of all juries would be expected to have one or no Negro jurors. In fact, more than 80% of the Illinois sentencing juries have had less than two Negro members when the defendant was a Negro.
A majority of this Court has already recognized that the exclusion of minority jurors through peremptory challenges is a significant constitutional issue this Court will some day have to address. McCray v. New York, 461 U. S. 961, 961-962 (1983) (opinion of STEVENS, J., joined by BLACKMUN and POWELL, JJ.); id., at 966-967 (MARSHALL, J., joined by BRENNAN, J., dissenting). As the years pass, it becomes increasingly clear that the problem will not be solved until this Court intervenes. See Gilliard v. Mississippi, supra, at 873. Over the last 12 months, I have twice urged the Court either to reconsider our decision in Swain v. Alabama, supra, or to address the distinct question whether the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit the States from excluding potential jurors solely on the basis of race. See McCray v. New York, supra, at 963 (MARSHALL, J., dissenting); Gilliard v. Mississippi, supra. These petitions present the Court with three more opportunities to protect criminal defendants against jury-selection procedures that are clearly racially discriminatory. Again today, I urge my colleagues to grant
I dissent from the Court‘s refusal to confront this issue.
No. 83-5808. PORTER v. MCKASKLE, ACTING DIRECTOR, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS. C. A. 5th Cir. Certiorari denied.
JUSTICE MARSHALL, with whom JUSTICE BRENNAN joins, dissenting.
This case presents a recurring question concerning the standard for determining when a trial judge has a constitutional obligation to order a psychiatric examination to determine a defendant‘s competency to stand trial. Especially because the correct answer to that question determines whether petitioner lives or dies, I would grant the petition.1
In 1976, petitioner, Henry Martinez Porter, was tried in Texas for the murder of a policeman. He was convicted and sentenced to death. However, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned his conviction on the ground that petitioner‘s constitutional right to confront witnesses against him had been violated by the introduction into evidence of materials from a file pertaining to petitioner‘s conduct while on federal parole during 1973 and 1974. Porter v. State, 578 S. W. 2d 742 (1979). Among those materials were various reports that cast doubt on petitioner‘s sanity and capacity to understand legal proceedings. For example, the director of a drug abuse treatment center described petitioner‘s debilitating and apparently incurable heroin addiction. The director went on to cite petitioner‘s “serious mental and emotional handicaps,” concluding that petitioner‘s “rehabilitative rating is very poor.” Id., at 745. Another report quoted unnamed psychologists to the effect that petitioner had “a psychopathic personality” and had manifested “paranoid schizophrenic behavior.” Id., at 744.
Petitioner was retried before the same judge who had presided over his first trial. After the jury had been selected but before it was empaneled, the prosecutor for the first time discovered a presentence report, prepared in 1959, that described a psychiatric