United States v. Romano

191 F. Supp. 772, 1961 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3212
CourtDistrict Court, D. Connecticut
DecidedMarch 10, 1961
DocketCrim. No. 10284
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 191 F. Supp. 772 (United States v. Romano) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Connecticut primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Romano, 191 F. Supp. 772, 1961 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3212 (D. Conn. 1961).

Opinion

ANDERSON, Chief Judge.

The defendants, Frank Romano, John Ottiano, Edward Romano and Antonio Vellucci, ask to have the indictment dismissed because the Grand Jury which returned it was drawn from a group of veniremen which was drawn from a jury list, selected in a manner which was contrary to law.

The bases for their complaint that the jury list was improperly made up are:

(1) that it contains too many persons from New London County,

(2) that it contains too few persons of Italian extraction,

(3) that it contains too few persons of the Jewish faith,

(4) that it does not disclose how many persons are of the Negro race,

(5) that there are included top many persons who attended college, and

(6) that there are included too many persons “of the self-employed or management segment of the community.”

The defendants argue that if there is not enough before the court at this stage of their motion to warrant dismissal, then they should be permitted to investigate and examine every detail of the acts of the Jury Commissioners in selecting the jury list. The defendants concede that, while no one of the claimed deficiencies standing by itself might be sufficient to overcome the presumption that the jury list is a representative cross-section of the community, all of them together are enough to require a full investigation and examination of the steps taken in making the jury list.

In 1955 in connection with motions to dismiss indictments in eases then pending, this court dismissed an indictment and discharged the array (United States v. Silverman, D.C., 129 F.Supp. 496) and, thereafter, approved and adopted, for use of this court, a new system for making a jury list, which, with a few modifications, is the system under which the jury list of March 1, 1960, presently under attack, was produced. This new system is fully set out in the second Silverman case, United States v. Silverman, D.C., 132 F.Supp. 820. Reference is made to the Report to the Judicial Conference of its Sub-Committee on the Operation of the Jury System, January, 1960. See particularly page 89, et seq. That system has since been slightly modified in response to recent statutory changes. Title 28 § 1861 as amended September 9, 1957. The present selection procedure, which allows for those modifications, is set out in full in Appendix A, hereto attached.

In general outline, the pattern followed is that the Commissioners, from their own inquiry, make up, as they describe it, a list of citizens “from a variety of backgrounds whom [they] have reason to believe have a wide acquaintance in their respective communities and are esteemed therein as persons of good character, approved integrity and sound judgment and fair education,” as “suggesters,” whose function it is, under written instructions from the Jury Commissioners, to propose to them the names of persons in their communities who may be likely material for the jury list. The Jury Commission[774]*774ers then, after inquiry of their own and careful consideration, determine those citizens who are qualified for inclusion In the jury list. A study of the system supplemented by the testimony of Mr. Earl, Clerk of the Court, and the only Jury Commissioner called to testify, makes it abundantly clear that at every step of the way the Jury Commissioners have been conscious of their duty to provide a jury list which is a representative cross-section of the qualified populace and from which no special class or group, particularly such as may be characterized by sex, race, creed, national origin or economic or social status, is systematically excluded. Frazier v. United States, 1948, 335 U.S. 497, 504, 69 S.Ct. 201, 93 L.Ed. 187; Ballard v. United States, 1946, 329 U.S. 187, 192-194, 67 S.Ct. 261, 91 L.Ed. 181; Thiel v. Southern Pac. Co., 1946, 328 U.S. 217, 220-221, 66 S.Ct. 984, 90 L.Ed. 1181; Glasser v. United States, 1942, 315 U.S. 60, 85-86, 62 S.Ct. 457, 86 L.Ed. 680.

The defendants expressly disclaim any accusation of such intentional or systematic exclusion by the Jury Commissioners. Moreover, they do not attack the system. The nub of their contention is that an analysis of (1) the names and addresses of the 905 persons on the jury list of March 1, 1960, (2) the 122 questionnaires of persons actually summoned as veniremen from that jury list subsequent to its establishment, (3) the 50 veniremen drawn for the choosing of the Grand Jury of May 3, 1960 and (4) the 23 members of the Grand Jury, itself, discloses reasonable ground to believe that the functioning of the system, in this instance, somehow went awry and produced a jury list which was not a representative cross-section of the qualified populace. They assert that, even if there is not enough evidence from this analysis to call for a dismissal of the indictment, there is enough to require a full and complete examination of all of the acts of the Jury Commissioners in selecting the jury list in question.

A court, however, should not be required to undertake a full scale investigation of its jury panel or the array until it is suspect. Padgett v. Buxton-Smith Mercantile Co., 10 Cir., 1960, 283 F.2d 597, certiorari denied 1961, 81 S.Ct. 713; Windom v. United States, 10 Cir., 1958, 260 F.2d 384. The burden of showing that it is suspect lies with the defendants. Frazier v. United States, 1948, 335 U.S. 497, 69 S.Ct. 201.

In the present case the defendants offer the six grounds above mentioned as an accumulation of defects which, they claim, render the array suspect. These grounds and the evidence the defendants have offered to show their existence will be discussed seriatim.

First is the complaint that too many on the jury list are from New London County, which is the county in which some of the offenses are charged to have taken place. It also happens to be the county where one of the Jury Commissioners, Rear Admiral Miles H. Imlay, U.S.C.G. (Ret.), resides. On September 7, 1954 under the authority of 28 U.S.C.A. § 1864 and § 1865, this court, for the purpose of making a convenient and workable division between those towns in the district from which jurors would be summoned for service at terms held at New Haven and those from which jurors would be summoned for service at terms held at Hartford, designated the twelve most southerly towns in New London County as a part of the area chosen for the selection of jurors for the court at New Haven. Of the 905 persons on the March 1, 1960 jury list, 334 came from towns in New London County, 391 from towns in New Haven County, 146 from towns in Fairfield County and 34 from towns in Middlesex County. The defendants complain that the numbers from the counties, as they relate to each other, are out of proportion to the comparative population totals for the respective counties.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
191 F. Supp. 772, 1961 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3212, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-romano-ctd-1961.