Jury Trial Flashcards
Duncan reasons for jury trial
the Court in Duncan identified several reasons for believing that the right to jury trial in criminal cases is a “fundamental right” that must be recognized by the states: (1) it serves “to prevent oppression by the Government,” protecting defendants against “unfounded criminal charges brought to eliminate enemies” and “judges too responsive to the voice of higher authority”; (2) it provides “an inestimable safeguard against the corrupt or overzealous prosecutor and against the compliant, biased, or eccentric judge”; (3) it gives defendants the opportunity to seek “the common-sense judgment of a jury” rather than “the more tutored but perhaps less sympathetic reaction of the single judge”; and (4) it reflects “a reluctance to entrust plenary powers over the life and liberty of the citizen to one judge or to a group of judges
6th amendment right to counsel if defendant’s crimes add up to 6 months?
No. petty crimes, each of which carries a maximum sentence of six months or less, is still not entitled to a jury even though in the aggregate he faces a sentence of a year or more because of consecutive sentencing. Stated differently, five petty crimes does not equal one serious crime; the jury trial right only attaches if the defendant is charged with at least one crime that has an authorized punishment of more than six months
Constitutional right to bench trial?
The defendant does not have the constitutional right to insist on a bench trial.
In Singer v. United States, U.S. (1965), involving a challenge to a provision in the Fed. Rules of Crim. Proc. (Rule 23(a)) requiring prosecutorial and judicial approval before a defendant could waive jury trial, the Court explained: “We find no constitutional impediment to conditioning a waiver of [the jury-trial] right on the consent of the prosecuting attorney and the trial judge when, if either refuses to consent, the result is simply that the defendant is subject to an impartial trial by jury—the very thing that the Constitution guarantees him.”
Willaims v. Florida
6 jury members is constituionally permissible
Ballew v. Georgia
5 jury members unconstitutional but 6 are ok (citing bunch of stufies saying that 6 ppl juries are more harmful than 12 ppl juries)
Fed. R. Crim. P. 31(a)
juries not only must have 12 members (subject to a couple of minor exceptions, but also that their verdict be unanimous, whether they are convicting or acquitting
Nearly all states follow the same rule, with Oregon being the only state that currently permits non-unanimous verdicts
Jury compostion
There are three central issues concerning the composition of a criminal jury: (1) Was the jury impartial, within the meaning of the Sixth Amendment? (2) Was the jury selected from a venire that represented a “fair cross section” of the community, an implied requirement under the Sixth Amendment? (3) Was the jury selected in a nondiscriminatory way in compliance with the requirements of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (or, in federal cases, the equivalent requirements under the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause)
Challenge for cause
The primary mechanism for the exclusion of potential jurors lacking impartiality is the challenge for cause. During or after voir dire, the prosecutor and defense attorney have an unlimited opportunity to make challenges for cause against prospective jurors they believe to be biased. These challenges must be resolved by the trial judge, based on information obtained from the prospective juror. Even in the absence of a challenge for cause, however, the judge must exclude, on her own motion, any prospective juror whom the judge believes to be biased
Peremptory challenge
These challenges are granted in limited number, according to the law of the jurisdiction (usually the same number for both sides, although sometimes the defense is granted more than the prosecution), and—subject to narrow exceptions discussed below—can be exercised for any reason at all (or even without any stated reason). The idea behind the peremptory challenge is that a lawyer may sometimes feel that a prospective juror would be adverse to her side of the case, yet be unable to establish that the prospective juror is biased; indeed, it may be impossible (or impolitic, in the presence of other prospective jurors) for the lawyer even to state the basis for her feelings. The peremptory challenge allows the lawyer to act on such feelings, and to exclude such prospective jurors, without the need to explain. For example, if a prospective juror, in response to voir dire questioning, states that he often got into trouble as a teenager, this would probably be insufficient to show bias but might provide the basis for the exercise of a peremptory challenge by the prosecutor, who might fear that such a prospective juror would be more likely than others to sympathize with the defendant.
Impartiality requirement
a prospective juror lacks impartiality only if he or she has views about the case strong enough to “prevent or substantially impair the performance of his [or her] duties as a juror” in accordance with the law. See Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U.S. (1985
Impartiality + race-based questions
Instructive in this regard are Ham v. South Carolina, U.S. (1973), and Ristaino v. Ross, U.S. (1976). In Ham, the defendant was a young, bearded black man who was active in the civil rights movement in Florence, South Carolina. He was charged with marijuana possession, and he claimed to have been framed by the police because of his race and his civil rights activism. His lawyer asked the trial judge to question the prospective jurors at voir dire about their possible racial biases, but the request was denied, and Ham was convicted. The Court found it to be unconstitutional because although “the trial judge was not required to put the question in any particular form,” the defendant must be “permitted to have the jurors interrogated on the issue of racial bias.”
In Ross, the defendant was a black man charged with armed robbery, assault, and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, and assault and battery with intent to murder, in connection with an attack on a white Boston University security guard. His lawyer sought to have the trial judge ask the prospective jurors the following voir dire question: “Are there any of you who believe that a white person is more likely to be telling the truth than a black person?” The trial judge refused, and Ross was convicted. The Court affirmed the conviction, explaining that Ham “did not announce a requirement of universal applicability. Rather, it reflected an assessment of whether under all circumstances presented there was a constitutionally significant likelihood that, absent questioning about racial prejudice, the jurors would not be [impartial].”
The critical factor present in Ham, but not present in [Ross], was that racial issues were “inextricably bound up with the conduct of the trial,” and the consequent need, under all the circumstances, specifically to inquire into possible racial prejudice in order to assure an impartial jury. . . . Although [Ross] involved an alleged criminal confrontation between a black assailant and a white victim, that fact pattern alone did not create a need of “constitutional dimensions” to question the jury concerning racial prejudice. . . . There is no constitutional presumption of juror bias for or against members of any particular racial or ethnic groups. . . . Only when there are more substantial indications of the likelihood of racial or ethnic prejudice affecting the jurors in a particular case does the trial court’s denial of a defendant’s request to examine the jurors’ ability to deal impartially with this subject amount to an unconstitutional abuse of discretion
See also Turner v. Murray, supra, where the Court applied Ham, not Ross, to hold that “a capital defendant accused of an interracial crime is entitled to have prospective jurors informed of the race of the victim and questioned on the issue of racial bias.” In a separate, plurality portion of Justice White’s lead opinion in Turner, he reiterated that “[t]he fact of interracial violence alone is not a ‘special circumstance’ entitling the defendant to have prospective jurors questioned about racial prejudice,”
Nevertheless, Turner’s death sentence (but not his guilty verdict) had to be overturned because of the combination of three such “special circumstances”: (1) the crime charged involved interracial violence,” (2) “the broad discretion given the jury at the death-penalty hearing,” and (3) “the special seriousness of the risk of improper sentencing in a capital case.”
Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510 (1968)
persons opposed to the death penalty could be excluded, on impartiality grounds, from juries in capital cases only if they made it “unmistakably clear (1) that they would automatically vote against the imposition of capital punishment without regard to any evidence that might be developed at the trial of the case before them, or (2) that their attitude toward the death penalty would prevent them from making an impartial decision as to the defendant’s guilt.
Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U.S. 412 (1985)
modified the Witherspoon standard, explaining that—in capital and noncapital cases alike—“the quest is for jurors who will conscientiously apply the law and find the facts.”. The Court held:
[T]he proper standard for determining when a prospective juror may be excluded for cause because of his or her views on capital punishment . . . is whether the juror’s views would “prevent or substantially impair the performance of his [or her] duties as a juror in accordance with his [or her] instructions and his [or her] oath.” We note that, in addition to dispensing with Witherspoon’s reference to “automatic” decisionmaking, this standard likewise does not require that a juror’s bias be proved with “unmistakable clarity.”
See also Uttecht v. Brown, 551 U.S. 1 (2007), where the Court, by 5-4, held that the Witt standard must be applied by federal habeas courts with a kind of “double” deference: deference to the trial court that had the chance to judge the demeanor of the prospective juror in the first instance, as well as the mandatory deference owed to state courts by all federal habeas courts
Duren v. Missouri
systematic exclusion of women that results in jury venires averaging less than 15% female violates the Constitution’s fair-cross-section requirement.
In order to establish a prima facie violation of the fair-cross-section requirement, the defendant must show (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
The demonstration of a prima facie fair-cross-section violation by the defendant is not the end of the inquiry into whether a constitutional violation has occurred
We recognize that a State may have an important interest in assuring that those members of the family responsible for the care of children are available to do so. An exemption appropriately tailored to this interest would, we think, survive a fair-cross-section challenge
States remain free to prescribe relevant qualifications for their jurors and to provide reasonable exemptions so long as it may be fairly said that the jury lists or panels are representative of the community.” But it mist go beyond rational basis and the state must show that a significant state interest be manifestly and primarily advanced by those aspects of the jury-selection process, such as exemption criteria, that result in the disproportionate exclusion of a distinctive group
Fair cross section of the community doctrine
Only applies to venire, not actual jury!
In Taylor, the Court identified three primary reasons: (1) “guard[ing] against the exercise of arbitrary power,” (2) preserving “public confidence in the fairness of the criminal justice system,” and (3) implementing the belief that “sharing in the administration of justice is a phase of civic responsibility.” 419 U.S., at 530-531. The Court emphasized, however, 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.
