Legal Policy Memorandum
MEMORANDUM
TO: District Court Judge
FROM:
RE: Fair Cross Section of Jurors to Serve On a Jury
DATE: February 10, 2017
Issue presented
Following the persistent and continual underrepresentation of African Americans, women and other minority groups on juries in spite of the Sixth Amendment Right to a jury trial that incorporates the right to have the jury selected fairly from the society, what alternate constructions of the Sixth Amendment Requirement can be made in order to ensure more juries that are representative? How can we overcome the jurisprudential standstill regarding the ‘fair cross-section’ requirement?
Short answer
The sixth amendment enshrines procedural rights that are critical in the safeguarding of an individual’s right to jury, liberty and freedom, which is provided for in four different sections of Article III of the constitution of the United States (Chernoff, 2015). Instead of deriving the requirement of fair cross section from the sixth amendment’s unprejudiced jury, it should be derived from the vicinage clause. This will result into a set of guidelines that focus more on representativeness echoed in the sixth amendment (Chhlablani, 2011).
Statement of facts
The case of Taylor vs. Louisiana 419 U.S 522 (1975) is an example of how courts continue to violate the right to fair cross-section based on race and gender (Howeth, 1991). In Taylor vs. Louisiana, a ruling by the supreme court of the United States held that Taylor had a solid reason to challenge a state law that deliberately locked out women from jury services but only allowed them after they requested a permission to serve. The court ruled that the State Law went against fair cross-section requirement thus denying Taylor his right to impartial jury trial (Howeth, 1991). Nonetheless, the Supreme Court insisted that although the composition of petit juries must obtained from a representative community, they must not necessarily mirror the community.
Discussion
Chernoff (2015) insists that every criminal defendant or law-breaker has the right to face a jury that has been selected fairly from a cross-section of the community. This means that the jury must consist of a pool of people that reflect the racial and ethnic composition of the community. She further goes ahead to insinuate that most juries in across the United States do not portray or represent a fair cross-section of the community. Consequently, criminal defendants who come from minorities such as African American and Latino appear before juries that are unduly white. From the case of Taylor vs. Louisiana, it becomes apparent that the right to an impartial panel of judges depends on the mere decision to allow or deny criminal defendants discovery and access to jury records. Violation of the celebrated right to fair cross-section is discrete constitutionally, utterly invisible and always harms those who fall victims (Chhlablani, 2011; Howeth, 1991). The fact that a ruling against Taylor was passed with an underrepresentation of women in the jury is an indication that unless victims discover that their right has been violated, this impunity always goes unseen.
Conclusion
In reaching its conclusion, the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of Taylor owing to the fact that he had to deal with systematic exclusion of individuals based on their gender. The exclusion of women in this case occurred at the level of the jury pool.
“In Taylor and Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 95 S. Ct. 692, 42 L. Ed. 2d 690 (1975), this court held that the sixth amendment required that the jury venire be drawn from a fair cross-section of the community. The court stated however, that “[I]n holding that petit juries must be drawn from a source fairly representative of the community we impose no requirement that petit juries must mirror the community and reflect the various distinctive groups in the population” (Dippel, 1991, pg.182).
The application of the requirement to fair cross-section to petit juries is a subject that calls upon all players in the justice system to purpose to implement it to its fullest (Chernoff, 2015). Had Taylor left the matter after the state court ruling, the right to get a fair hearing and ruling would have been thwarted as the ruling did not factor in the opinion of women who were not part of the jury pool.
Recommendations
Most jury pools have been seen to violate the requirement of fair cross-section in spite of its loud presence in the clauses of sixth amendment unbiased jury. It is time the fair cross section requirement was derived from the vicinage clause instead of the Sixth Amendment clause. This is because the Sixth Ammendment clause lacks the much-needed faithfulness to the understanding of representativeness (Chhlablani, 2011). Having a textual framework is the best recipe to settle the never-ending conflict and paradox in jurisprudence that continues to constraint the fair cross-section requirement. Additionally, deriving the promising requirement from the vicinage clause carries the potential to rejuvenate the Sixth Amendment by doing away with the categorical omissions from the jury service; something that is discernibly ubiquitous in many jurisdictions (Chhlablani, 2011).
References
Chernoff, N. W. (2015). No records, no right: Discovery & the fair cross-section guarantee. Iowa L. Rev., 101, 1719.
Chhlablani, S.K. (2011). Re-framing the ‘Fair Cross-Section’ requirement. Journal of Constitutional Law, 13(4), 931-976.
Dippel, D. L. (1991). Holland v. Illinois: Sixth Amendment Fair Cross-Section Requirement does not preclude racially-based peremptory challenges. Akron Law Review, 24(1), 177-197.
Howeth, J. E. (1991). Holland v. Illinois: The Supreme Court narrows the scope of protection against discriminatory jury selection procedures. Wash. & Lee L. Rev., 48(2), 579-619.
