Archer v. Mayes

• Decision Date: 05 March 1973
• Citation: 194 S.E.2d 707,213 Va. 633
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: Grace ARCHER and James Johnson v. D. Carleton MAYES, Judge of the Circuit Court of Amelia County, et al.

Page 707

194 S.E.2d 707

213 Va. 633

Grace ARCHER and James Johnson v. D. Carleton MAYES, Judge of the Circuit Court of Amelia County, et al.

Supreme Court of Virginia.

March 5, 1973.

John C. Lowe, F. Guthrie Gordon, III, Charlottesville (Lowe & Gordon, Charlottesville, on brief), for appellants.

Vann H. Lefcoe, Asst. Atty. Gen., J. Segar Gravatt, Blackstone (Andrew P. Miller, Atty. Gen., on brief), for appellees.

Before SNEAD, C.J., and I'ANSON, CARRICO, HARRISON, COCHRAN, HARMAN and POFF, JJ.

I'ANSON, Justice.

This controversy originated as a class action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia for a declaration of the invalidity of certain Virginia jury selection statutes, for an injunction against racial and sexual discrimination in jury selection, and for an affirmative revision of the Amelia County jury list. Eventually, the questions before the Federal court were held in abeyance to permit the parties to seek their remedy in the State court.

Complainants, Grace Archer and James Johnson, then commenced the present proceeding for declaratory judgments asking the court below to declare: (1) that §§ 8--178 and 8--182 of the 1950 Code, as amended, 1957 Repl.Vol., 1972 Cum.Supp., which deals with the rights of women in relation to jury service, are unconstitutional as an invalid sex discrimination in violation of the Constitution of Virginia and the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; (2) that Code § 8--181, as amended, 1957 Repl.Vol., which prescribes the oath to be taken by the jury commissioners, is unconstitutional in that it fails to insure that a cross-section of the community will be considered for jury selection; and (3) that Code §§ 8--183 and 8--184, as amended, 1957 Repl.Vol., which provide for the safekeeping of the lists of jurors, are unconstitutional in that they permit the court to deny citizens access to official documents in violation of Virginia law and the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Appellants did not allege racial discrimination in the jury selection process in this proceeding, nor did they ask for an injunction against racial and sexual discrimination in jury selection and for revision of the Amelia County jury list, which they sought in the Federal court.

Respondents, D. Carleton Mayes, Judge of the Fourth Judicial Circuit of Virginia; S. L. Farrar, Jr., Clerk of the Circuit Court of Amelia County; and John L. Smith, James E. Ford and Graham W. Thompson, currently the jury commissioners of the county, filed their answers to the bills for declaratory judgments and attached thereto a copy of Judge Mayes' instructions to the jury commissioners in Amelia County.

The cases were consolidated by agreement and heard as one case on the following stipulation of facts:

Grace Archer and James Johnson are citizens of Amelia County and are qualified to serve as jurors in that county; they desire to examine the master jury list of the county for the sole purpose of ascertaining whether 'jury procedures have been carried out according to law'; and they are desirous of serving as jurors in the county.

The respondents are those officials in Amelia County 'responsible for the selection and administration' of jurors in the county; the complainants have not been chosen as jurors; and the respondents have not allowed the complainants to see and examine the master jury list of the county.

The trial judge, in a comprehensive written opinion, held that the statutes under attack are not unconstitutional on their face, and dismissed the complainants' bills. We granted complainants a writ of error.

I.

The 1971 amendments to Code §§ 8--178(30) and 8--182 permit any woman who has been notified that her name has been selected by the jury commissioners for jury duty to claim an exemption by a reply in the manner prescribed in Code § 8--182, 'that she has legal custody of and is responsible for a child or children sixteen years of age or younger or a person having a mental or physical impairment requiring continuous care during normal court hours and that she does not desire her name placed upon the jury list . . ..' Code § 8--178(30).

Complainants say that the statutory exemption discriminates against men and in favor of women in that men who care for children sixteen years of age or younger or persons having mental or physical impairments are not permitted to claim exemption from jury duty. Thus they argue that the statutes are discriminatory on the basis of sex, and are in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Article I, Section 11, of the Constitution of Virginia.

The only case to come before us attacking the constitutional validity of Code §§ 8--178 and 8--182 is Near v. Commonwealth, 202 Va. 20, 29, 116 S.E.2d 85, 91 (1960), cert. denied 365 U.S. 873, 81 S.Ct. 907, 5 L.Ed.2d 862 (1961), cert. denied 369 U.S. 862, 82 S.Ct. 951, 8 L.Ed.2d 19 (1962). The statutes at the time Near was decided permitted any woman to claim exemption from jury service by responding in writing to a communication from the jury commissioners that she did not desire her name to be placed on the jury list. We upheld the statute on the ground that the exemption given to women was a statutory declaration of public policy permitting them to avoid court trials involving indecent and humiliating elements.

Less than a year after we decided Near, the Supreme Court of the United States, in Hoyt v. Florida, 368 U.S. 57, 82 S.Ct. 159, 7 L.Ed.2d 118 (1961), sustained the validity of a Florida statute according all women an absolute exemption from jury service unless they expressly waive that privilege. There the Court said:

'. . . We cannot say that it is constitutionally impermissible for a State, acting in pursuit of the general welfare, to conclude that a woman should be relieved from the civic duty of jury service unless she herself determines that such service is consistent with her own special responsibilities.

'. . . It is true, of course, that Florida could have limited the exemption, as some other States have done, only to women who have family responsibilities. But we cannot regard it as irrational for a state legislature to consider preferable a broad exemption, whether born of the State's historic public policy or of a determination that it would not be administratively feasible to decide in each individual instance whether the family responsibilities of a prospective female juror were serious enough to warrant an exemption.' 368 U.S. at 62--63, 82 S.Ct. at 162--164, 7 L.Ed.2d at 122--123. (Footnotes omitted.)

Complainants rely on Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71, 92 S.Ct. 251, 30 L.Ed.2d 225 (1971), as authority for what they say is the 'growing recognition' that the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. There an Idaho statute gave men a preference over women in administering decedents' estates. In striking down this statute the United States Supreme Court said:

'In applying . . . (the Equal Protection Clause), this Court has consistently recognized that the Fourteenth Amendment does not deny to States the power to treat different classes of persons in different ways . . .. (Citing cases.) The Equal Protection Clause of that Amendment does, however, deny to States the power to legislate that different treatment be accorded to persons placed by a statute into different classes on the basis of criteria wholly unrelated to the objective of that statute. A classification 'must be reasonable, not arbitrary, and must rest upon some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation, so that all persons similarly circumstanced shall be treated alike.' Royster Guano Co. v. Virginia, 253 U.S. 412, 415, 40 S.Ct. 560, 561, 64 L.Ed. 989 (1920). The question presented by this case, then, is whether a difference in the sex of competing applicants for letters of administration bears a rational relationship to a state objective that is sought to be advanced by the operation of §§ 15--312 and 15--314.' (Emphasis added.) 404 U.S. at 75--76, 92 S.Ct. at 253--254, 30 L.Ed.2d at 229.

Appellants also say that the Supreme Court, in Alexander v. Louisiana, 405 U.S. 625, 92 S.Ct. 1221, 31 L.Ed.2d 536 (1972), has already begun to express reservations about its holding in Hoyt, supra. We do not agree. The court found it unnecessary to pass on the question of the constitutionality of the Louisiana statute concerning women jurors. Only one Justice was of opinion that the issue should be decided and that Hoyt should not longer be followed.

The constitutionality of Code §§ 8--178(30) and 8--182 depends upon whether the classification constitutes such invidious discrimination against men that it is patently arbitrary and unreasonable and bears no rational relationship to the State objective that is sought to be advanced by the statutes. If there is any reasonable basis for the classification, the alleged statutory discrimination must be upheld. Reed v. Reed, Supra, 404 U.S. at 76, 92 S.Ct. at 254, 30 L.Ed.2d at 229; McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 426, 81 S.Ct. 1101, 1105, 6 L.Ed.2d 393, 399 (1961); Leighton v. Goodman, 311 F.Supp. 1181 (S.D.N.Y.1970).

It is perfectly manifest that the objective of the statutes is to provide proper care for those who cannot care for themselves by removing an obligation which might be imposed on their custodians to be absent for hours or days at a time for jury duty. The Commonwealth has a substantial interest in the care of children and persons with mental or physical impairments, and the statutes reflect a reasonable recognition by the legislature that women are usually the persons who perform such service. The classification bears a rational relationship to the objective sought to be advanced. It may be reasonable to require a man to prove that he should be relieved of jury duty, ¹ where it would be impractical...