People v. Bryant

796 N.W.2d 135, 289 Mich. App. 260
Michigan Court of Appeals·Decided July 20, 2010·No. Docket No. 280073·Published·Cited by 12 cases

Opinion

Borrello, J.

Defendant appeals as of right the trial court’s decision on remand, which found that defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury drawn from a fair cross section of the community was not violated because African-Americans were not underrepresented in the venire from which defendant’s jury was selected and Kent County’s jury-selection process, at the time of defendant’s trial, did not system[264] atically exclude African-Americans. For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we reverse and remand for a new trial.

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Defendant was convicted of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, MCL 750.520b(1)(e), armed robbery, MCL 750.529, and possession of marijuana, MCL 333.7403(2)(d), by a jury in the Kent Circuit Court in February 2002. He appealed, arguing, in part, that he was deprived of his Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury drawn from a fair cross section of the community because there was only one African-American in the jury venire of 42 people. In an unpublished opinion, we affirmed in part and remanded “for the sole purpose of conducting an evidentiary hearing regarding defendant’s challenge to the jury venire.” People v Bryant, unpublished opinion per curiam of the Court of Appeals, issued March 16, 2004 (Docket No. 241442), p 7.

On remand, the trial court held several evidentiary hearings and issued a written opinion. The trial court rejected defendant’s reliance on statistical estimates, reasoning that they were not sufficient to prove under-representation. The trial court made four holdings: that “defendant has failed to sustain his burden of proving that African-Americans were substantially underrepresented among the prospective jurors to whom questionnaires were mailed in 2001-2002,” that “even if African-Americans were numerically underrepresented from June, 2001, through mid-Fail, 2002, among prospective jurors, defendant has failed to establish that the circumstances were such that that underrepresentation was unconstitutional as defined by the Supreme Courts of the United States and Michigan,” that “even if there [265] was unconstitutional underrepresentation in the total number of prospective jurors, there was no underrepresentation of African-Americans in the venire from which defendant’s jury was selected,” and, finally, that “any underrepresentation was the product of chance, not any bias, even an innocent and accidental bias, in the jury selection process. Hence, systematic exclusion has not been proven.”

Defendant appeals again, arguing that he was denied his Sixth Amendment right to be tried by an impartial jury drawn from a fair cross section of the community because there was only one African-American in the jury venire of 42 people.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review de novo questions regarding systematic exclusion of minorities from jury venires. People v Hubbard (After Remand), 217 Mich App 459, 472; 552 NW2d 493 (1996).

III. ANALYSIS

The issue in this case is whether defendant was denied his Sixth Amendment right to be tried by an impartial jury drawn from a fair cross section of the community because there was only one African-American in the jury venire of 42 people.

The Sixth Amendment applies to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Duncan v Louisiana, 391 US 145, 149; 88 S Ct 1444; 20 L Ed 2d 491 (1968). In addition, the Michigan Constitution guarantees the right to trial by jury. Const 1963, art 1, § 14. In Taylor v Louisiana, 419 US 522, 528; 95 S Ct 692; 42 L Ed 2d 690 (1975), the United States Supreme Court stated “that the selection of a petit jury [266] from a representative cross section of the community is an essential component of the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial.” While the “fair-cross-section requirement does not entitle the defendant to a petit jury that mirrors the community,” it “guarantees an opportunity for a representative jury by requiring that 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 constitute a fair cross section of the community.” Hubbard, 217 Mich App at 472-473.

In Duren v Missouri, 439 US 357, 364; 99 S Ct 664; 58 L Ed 2d 579 (1979), the United States Supreme Court articulated the showing that a defendant must make to establish a prima facie violation of the Sixth Amendment fair-cross-section requirement:

(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.

Once a defendant establishes a prima facie violation of the fair-cross-section requirement, “the government may overcome the right to a proper jury by proffering a significant state interest that manifestly and primarily advances those aspects of the jury selection process that would result in the disproportionate exclusion of a distinctive group . . . .” Hubbard, 217 Mich App at 473; see also Duren, 439 US at 367-368.

As we observed in our previous opinion in this case, defendant satisfied the first prong of Duren because “African-Americans are considered a constitutionally [267] cognizable group for Sixth Amendment fair-cross-section purposes.” Hubbard, 217 Mich App at 473.

The second prong of Duren “is satisfied where it has been shown that a distinctive group is substantially underrepresented in the jury pool.” Id. at 474. Although it recently had the opportunity to specify the preferred method of measuring if representation of a distinctive group in the jury pool is fair and reasonable, the United States Supreme Court has not done so. See Berghuis v Smith, 559 US _, _; 130 S Ct 1382, 1393-1394; 176 L Ed 2d 249, 261 (2010) (“[W]e would have no cause to take sides today on the method or methods by which underrepresentation is appropriately measured.”). In People v Smith, 463 Mich 199, 203; 615 NW2d 1 (2000), our Supreme Court observed that federal courts since Duren have applied three different tests to measure whether representation of a distinctive group in the jury pool is fair and reasonable: the absolute-disparity test, the comparative-disparity test, and the standard-deviation test. Recognizing that all three tests are subject to criticism, our Supreme Court stated the following regarding the appropriate method to measure underrepresentation:

We thus consider all these approaches to measuring whether representation was fair and reasonable, and conclude that no individual method should be used exclusive of the others. Accordingly, we adopt a case-by-case approach. Provided that the parties proffer sufficient evidence, courts should consider the results of all the tests in determining whether representation was fair and reasonable. [Id. at 204.]

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People v. Bryant, 796 N.W.2d 135, 289 Mich. App. 260 (Mich. Ct. App. 2010).

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