MR. JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.
When this case was tried, Art. VII, § 41,
I
Appellant, Billy J. Taylor, was indicted by the grand jury of St. Tammany Parish, in the Twenty-second Judicial District of Louisiana, for aggravated kidnaping. On April 12, 1972, appellant moved the trial court to quash the petit jury venire drawn for the special criminal term beginning with his trial the following day. Appellant alleged that women were systematically excluded from the venire and that he would therefore be deprived of what he claimed to be his federal constitutional right to "a fair trial by jury of a representative segment of the community . . . ."
The Twenty-second Judicial District comprises the parishes of St. Tammany and Washington. The appellee has stipulated that 53% of the persons eligible for jury service in these parishes were female, and that no more than 10% of the persons on the jury wheel in St. Tammany Parish were women.
Appellant's motion to quash the venire was denied that same day. After being tried, convicted, and sentenced to death, appellant sought review in the Supreme Court of Louisiana, where he renewed his claim that the
Appellant appealed from that decision to this Court. We noted probable jurisdiction, 415 U.S. 911 (1974), to consider whether the Louisiana jury-selection system deprived appellant of his Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment right to an impartial jury trial. We hold that it did and that these Amendments were violated in this case by the operation of La. Const., Art. VII, § 41, and La. Code Crim. Proc., Art. 402. In consequence, appellant's conviction must be reversed.
II
The Louisiana jury-selection system does not disqualify women from jury service, but in operation its conceded systematic impact is that only a very few women, grossly disproportionate to the number of eligible women in the community, are called for jury service. In this case, no women were on the venire from which the petit jury was drawn. The issue we have, therefore, is whether a jury-selection system which operates to exclude from jury service an identifiable class of citizens constituting 53%
The State first insists that Taylor, a male, has no standing to object to the exclusion of women from his jury. But Taylor's claim is that he was constitutionally entitled to a jury drawn from a venire constituting a fair cross section of the community and that the jury that tried him was not such a jury by reason of the exclusion of women. Taylor was not a member of the excluded class; but there is no rule that claims such as Taylor presents may be made only by those defendants who are members of the group excluded from jury service. In Peters v. Kiff, 407 U.S. 493 (1972), the defendant, a white man, challenged his conviction on the ground that Negroes had been systematically excluded from jury service. Six Members of the Court agreed that petitioner was entitled to present the issue and concluded that he had been deprived of his federal rights. Taylor, in the case before us, was similarly entitled to tender and have adjudicated the claim that the exclusion of women from jury service deprived him of the kind of factfinder to which he was constitutionally entitled.
III
The background against which this case must be decided includes our holding in Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145 (1968), that the Sixth Amendment's provision for jury trial is made binding on the States by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment. Our inquiry is whether the presence of a fair cross section of the community on venires, panels, or lists from which petit juries are drawn is essential to the fulfillment of the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of an impartial jury trial in criminal prosecutions.
The Court's prior cases are instructive. Both in the
A federal conviction by a jury from which women had been excluded, although eligible for service under state law, was reviewed in Ballard v. United States, 329 U.S. 187 (1946). Noting the federal statutory "design to make the jury `a cross-section of the community' " and the fact that women had been excluded, the Court exercised its supervisory powers over the federal courts and reversed the conviction. In Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 474 (1953), the Court declared that "[o]ur duty to protect the federal constitutional rights of all does not mean we must or should impose on states our conception of the proper source of jury lists, so long as the source
Some years later in Carter v. Jury Comm'n, 396 U.S. 320, 330 (1970), the Court observed that the exclusion of Negroes from jury service because of their race "contravenes the very idea of a jury—`a body truly representative of the community'. . . ." (Quoting from Smith v. Texas, supra.) At about the same time it was contended that the use of six-man juries in noncapital criminal cases violated the Sixth Amendment for failure to provide juries drawn from a cross section of the community, Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78 (1970). In the course of rejecting that challenge, we said that the number of persons on the jury should "be large enough to promote group deliberation, free from outside attempts at intimidation, and to provide a fair possibility for obtaining a representative cross-section of the community." Id., at 100. In like vein, in Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U.S. 404, 410-411 (1972) (plurality opinion), it was said that "a jury will come to such a [commonsense] judgment as long as it consists of a group of laymen representative of a cross section of the community who have the duty and the opportunity to deliberate . . . on the question of a defendant's guilt." Similarly, three Justices in Peters v. Kiff, 407 U. S., at 500, observed that the Sixth Amendment comprehended a fair possibility for obtaining a jury constituting a representative cross section of the community.
The unmistakable import of this Court's opinions, at least since 1940, Smith v. Texas, supra, and not repudiated by intervening decisions, is that the selection of a petit jury from a representative cross section of the community is an essential component of the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial. Recent federal legislation governing jury selection within the federal court system has a similar thrust. Shortly prior to this Court's decision
We accept the fair-cross-section requirement as fundamental to the jury trial guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment and are convinced that the requirement has solid foundation. The purpose of a jury is to guard against the exercise of arbitrary power—to make available the commonsense judgment of the community as a hedge against the overzealous or mistaken prosecutor and in preference to the professional or perhaps over-conditioned or biased response of a judge. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S., at 155-156. This prophylactic vehicle is not provided if the jury pool is made up of only special segments of the populace or if large, distinctive groups are excluded from the pool. Community participation in the administration of the criminal law, moreover, is not only consistent with our democratic heritage but is also critical to public confidence in the fairness of the criminal justice system. Restricting jury service to only special groups or excluding identifiable segments playing major roles in the community cannot be squared with the constitutional concept of jury trial. "Trial by jury presupposes a jury drawn from a pool broadly representative of the community as well as impartial in a specific case. . . . [T]he broad representative character of the jury should be maintained, partly as assurance of a diffused impartiality and partly
IV
We are also persuaded that the fair-cross-section requirement is violated by the systematic exclusion of women, who in the judicial district involved here amounted to 53% of the citizens eligible for jury service. This conclusion necessarily entails the judgment that women are sufficiently numerous and distinct from men and that if they are systematically eliminated from jury panels, the Sixth Amendment's fair-cross-section requirement cannot be satisfied. This very matter was debated in Ballard v. United States, supra. Positing the fair-cross-section rule—there said to be a statutory one—the Court concluded that the systematic exclusion of women was unacceptable. The dissenting view that an all-male panel drawn from various groups in the community would be as truly representative as if women were included, was firmly rejected:
V
There remains the argument that women as a class serve a distinctive role in society and that jury service would so substantially interfere with that function that the State has ample justification for excluding women from service unless they volunteer, even though the result is that almost all jurors are men. It is true that Hoyt v. Florida, 368 U.S. 57 (1961), held that such a system
The States are free to grant exemptions from jury service to individuals in case of special hardship or incapacity and to those engaged in particular occupations the uninterrupted performance of which is critical to the community's welfare. Rawlins v. Georgia, 201 U.S. 638 (1906). It would not appear that such exemptions would pose substantial threats that the remaining pool of jurors would not be representative of the community. A system excluding all women, however, is a wholly different matter. It is untenable to suggest these days that it would be a special hardship for each and every woman to perform jury service or that society cannot
VI
Although this judgment may appear a foregone conclusion from the pattern of some of the Court's cases over the past 30 years, as well as from legislative developments at both federal and state levels, it is nevertheless true that until today no case had squarely held that the exclusion of women from jury venires deprives a criminal
VII
Our holding does not augur or authorize the fashioning of detailed jury-selection codes by federal courts. The
It should also be emphasized 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. Defendants are not entitled to a jury of any particular composition, Fay v. New York, 332 U.S. 261, 284 (1947); Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U. S., at 413 (plurality opinion); but the 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 be reasonably representative thereof.
The judgment of the Louisiana Supreme Court is reversed and the case remanded to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER concurs in the result.
MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST, dissenting.
The Court's opinion reverses a conviction without a suggestion, much less a showing, that the appellant has been unfairly treated or prejudiced in any way by the
The majority opinion canvasses various of our jury trial cases, beginning with Smith v. Texas, 311 U.S. 128 (1940). Relying on carefully chosen quotations, it concludes that the "unmistakable import" of our cases is that the fair-cross-section requirement "is an essential component of the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial." I disagree. Fairly read, the only "unmistakable import" of those cases is that due process and equal protection prohibit jury-selection systems which are likely to result in biased or partial juries. Smith v. Texas, supra, concerned the equal protection claim of a Negro who was indicted by a grand jury from which Negroes had been systematically excluded. Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60 (1942), dealt with allegations that the only women selected for jury service were members of a private organization which had conducted pro-prosecution classes for prospective jurors. Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443 (1953), rejected the equal protection and due process contentions of several black defendants that members of their race had been discriminatorily excluded from their juries. Carter v. Jury Comm'n, 396 U.S. 320 (1970), similarly dealt with equal protection challenges to a jury-selection system, but the persons claiming such rights were blacks who had sought to serve as jurors.
In Hoyt v. Florida, 368 U.S. 57 (1961), this Court gave plenary consideration to contentions that a system such as Louisiana's deprived a defendant of equal protection and due process. These contentions were rejected, despite circumstances which were much more suggestive of possible bias and prejudice than are those here—the defendant
The first determinative event, in the Court's view, is Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145 (1968). Because the Sixth Amendment was there held applicable to the States, the Court feels free to dismiss Hoyt as a case which dealt with entirely different issues—even though in fact it presented the identical problem. But Duncan's rationale is a good deal less expansive than is suggested by the Court's present interpretation of that case. Duncan rests on the following reasoning:
That this is a sturdy test, one not readily satisfied by every discrepancy between federal and state practice, was made clear not only in Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78 (1970), and Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U.S. 404 (1972), but also in Duncan itself. In explaining the conclusion that a jury trial is fundamental to our scheme of justice, and therefore should be required of the States, the Court pointed out that jury trial was designed to be a defense "against arbitrary law enforcement," 391 U. S., at 156, and "to prevent oppression by the Government." Id., at 155. The Court stated its belief that jury trial for serious offenses is "essential for preventing miscarriages of justice and for assuring that fair trials are provided for all defendants." Id., at 158.
I cannot conceive that today's decision is necessary to guard against oppressive or arbitrary law enforcement, or to prevent miscarriages of justice and to assure fair trials. Especially is this so when the criminal defendant involved makes no claims of prejudice or bias. The Court does accord some slight attention to justifying its ruling in terms of the basis on which the right to jury trial was read into the Fourteenth Amendment. It concludes that the jury is not effective, as a prophylaxis against arbitrary prosecutorial and judicial power, if the "jury pool is made up of only special segments of the populace or if large, distinctive groups are excluded from the pool." Ante, at 530. It fails, however, to provide any satisfactory explanation of the mechanism by which the Louisiana system undermines the prophylactic role of the jury, either in general or in this case. The best it can do is to
In Hoyt, this Court considered a stronger due process claim than is before it today, but found that fundamental fairness had not been offended. I do not understand how our intervening decision in Duncan can support a different result. After all, Duncan imported the Sixth Amendment into the Due Process Clause only because, and only to the extent that, this was perceived to be required by fundamental fairness.
The second change since Hoyt that appears to under-gird the Court's turnabout is societal in nature, encompassing both our higher degree of sensitivity to distinctions based on sex, and the "evolving nature of the structure of the family unit in American society." Ante, at 535 n. 17. These are matters of degree, and it is perhaps of some significance that in 1961 Mr. Justice Harlan saw fit to refer to the "enlightened emancipation of women from the restrictions and protections of bygone years, and their entry into many parts of community life formerly considered to be reserved to men." Hoyt, 368 U. S., at 61-62. Nonetheless, it may be fair to conclude that the Louisiana system is in fact an anachronism, inappropriate at this "time or place." Ante, at 537. But surely constitutional adjudication is a more canalized function than enforcing as against the States this Court's perception of modern life.
FootNotes
"The Legislature shall provide for the election and drawing of competent and intelligent jurors for the trial of civil and criminal cases; provided, however, that no woman shall be drawn for jury service unless she shall have previously filed with the clerk of the District Court a written declaration of her desire to be subject to such service."
As of January 1, 1975, this provision of the Louisiana Constitution was repealed and replaced by the following provision, La. Const., Art. V, § 33:
"(A) Qualifications.
"A citizen of the state who has reached the age of majority is eligible to serve as a juror within the parish in which he is domiciled. The legislature may provide additional qualifications.
"(B) Exemptions.
"The supreme court shall provide by rule for exemption of jurors."
"A woman shall not be selected for jury service unless she has previously filed with the clerk of court of the parish in which she resides a written declaration of her desire to be subject to jury service."
This provision has been repealed, effective January 1, 1975. The repeal, however, has no effect on the conviction obtained in this case.
"It must be remembered that the jury is designed not only to understand the case, but also to reflect the community's sense of justice in deciding it. As long as there are significant departures from the cross sectional goal, biased juries are the result—biased in the sense that they reflect a slanted view of the community they are supposed to represent."
See S. Rep. No. 92-516, p. 3 (1971).
Both the Senate and House Reports made reference to the decision of the Court of Appeals in Rabinowitz v. United States, 366 F.2d 34, 57 (CA5 1966), which, in sustaining an attack on the composition of grand and petit jury venires in the Middle District of Georgia, had held that both the Constitution and 28 U. S. C. § 1861, prior to its amendment in 1968, required a system of jury selection "that will probably result in a fair cross-section of the community being placed on the jury rolls." See S. Rep. No. 891, supra, at 11, 18; H. R. Rep. No. 1076, supra, n. 7, at 4, 5.
Elimination of the "key man" system throughout the federal courts was the primary focus of the Federal Jury Selection and Service Act of 1968. See H. R. Rep. No. 1076, supra, at 4 and n. 1.
"These principles compel the conclusion that a State cannot, consistent with due process, subject a defendant to indictment or trial by a jury that has been selected in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner, in violation of the Constitution and laws of the United States. Illegal and unconstitutional jury selection procedures cast doubt on the integrity of the whole judicial process. They create the appearance of bias in the decision of individual cases, and they increase the risk of actual bias as well.
.....
"But the exclusion from jury service of a substantial and identifiable class of citizens has a potential impact that is too subtle and too pervasive to admit of confinement to particular issues or particular cases. . . .
"Moreover, we are unwilling to make the assumption that the exclusion of Negroes has relevance only for issues involving race. When any large and identifiable segment of the community is excluded from jury service, the effect is to remove from the jury room qualities of human nature and varieties of human experience, the range of which is unknown and perhaps unknowable. It is not necessary to assume that the excluded group will consistently vote as a class in order to conclude, as we do, that its exclusion deprives the jury of a perspective on human events that may have unsuspected importance in any case that may be presented." (Footnote omitted.)
Controlled studies of the performance of women as jurors conducted subsequent to the Court's decision in Ballard have concluded that women bring to juries their own perspectives and values that influence both jury deliberation and result. See generally Rudolph, Women on Juries—Voluntary or Compulsory?, 44 J. Am. Jud. Soc. 206 (1961); 55 J. Sociology & Social Research 442 (1971); 3 J. Applied Social Psychology 267 (1973); 19 Sociometry 3 (1956).
It is most interesting to note that Strauder v. West Virginia itself stated:
"[T]he constitution of juries is a very essential part of the protection such a mode of trial is intended to secure. The very idea of a jury is a body of men composed of the peers or equals of the person whose rights it is selected or summoned to determine; that is, of his neighbors, fellows, associates, persons having the same legal status in society as that which he holds." 100 U.S. 303, 308 (1880).
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