Clark v. City of Bridgeport

• Decision Date: 21 October 1986
• Docket Number: B-86-119(TFGD) and B-86-115(TFGD).,Civ. No. B-83-514(TFGD)
• Citation: 645 F. Supp. 890
• Parties: Vallorie CLARK v. CITY OF BRIDGEPORT, and Alan Stak, Police Officer of the City of Bridgeport; Richard RIZZOLI v. Reynaldo MUNIZ, Police Officer of the City of Bridgeport, and the City of Bridgeport; Benjamin SIMMONS and Vivian Simmons v. John FORMICHELLA and Roger Falcone individually and in their official capacities as Police Officers of the City of Bridgeport.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut

645 F. Supp. 890

Vallorie CLARK v. CITY OF BRIDGEPORT, and Alan Stak, Police Officer of the City of Bridgeport;

Richard RIZZOLI v. Reynaldo MUNIZ, Police Officer of the City of Bridgeport, and the City of Bridgeport;

Benjamin SIMMONS and Vivian Simmons v. John FORMICHELLA and Roger Falcone individually and in their official capacities as Police Officers of the City of Bridgeport.

Civ. Nos. B-83-514(TFGD), B-86-119(TFGD) and B-86-115(TFGD).

United States District Court, D. Connecticut.

October 21, 1986.

Burton M. Weinstein, Richard J. Shapiro, Weinstein, Weiner & Shapiro, P.C., Lorraine W. Osborne, Goldman, Rosen & Willinger, Bridgeport, Conn., for plaintiffs.

Barbara B. Massaro, Raymond B. Rubens, Office of the City Atty., Bridgeport, Conn., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

DALY, Chief Judge.

The matter before the Court stems from the conduct of counsel for the City of Bridgeport ("City") during jury selection on October 7, 1986. While selecting juries in three civil rights cases brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the defendants City and named police officers used their peremptory challenges to strike every black citizen otherwise available to serve on the juries selected in each of three cases. The Court on October 8, 1986, having heard from counsel in each case, struck the three juries selected and assessed court costs and, upon proper application, attorneys' fees against the City of Bridgeport. In so doing, the Court cited, inter alia, Batson v. Kentucky, ___ U.S. ___, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), and indicated a written opinion would follow. The Court hereby concludes that the assistant City attorney's conduct in exercising the defendants' peremptory challenges violates equal protection and issues the following ruling in accordance with and amplifying its October 8, 1986 ruling from the bench.

On October 7, 1986, the Court conducted general voir dire for purposes of jury selection in Vallorie Clark v. City of Bridgeport, et al., B-83-514 ("Clark"), Richard Rizzoli v. Reynaldo Muniz, et al., B-86-115 ("Rizzoli"), and Benjamin Simmons, et al. v. John Formichella, et al., B-86-119 ("Simmons"). Following specific voir dire questions in Clark and challenges for cause, the courtroom deputy selected at random the names of sixteen prospective jurors, including three blacks, from which the petit jury and two alternates would be selected.¹ The parties then exercised their peremptory challenges with the defendants exercising their challenges to exclude all three of the blacks. A jury of six and two alternates were then selected for Clark which was scheduled to proceed to trial the following morning at 10:00 A.M.

Jury selection for Rizzoli next began with the same counsel as in Clark, at least for purposes of jury selection. Prior to arriving at a jury in Rizzoli, plaintiff's counsel, on the record at sidebar and in defense counsel's presence, indicated that in Clark the defendants had exercised their first three peremptory challenges to exclude the only three blacks among the sixteen prospective jurors whose names had been randomly drawn from the wheel. Counsel further indicated his client, Vallorie Clark, is black. The Court instructed counsel to file whatever he wished and stated, "and we'll deal with it before 10 o'clock tomorrow. We'll deal with it."

Following further voir dire and challenges for cause in Rizzoli, sixteen names, including that of one black, were selected from the wheel. In exercising the defendants' peremptory challenges, the assistant City attorney excluded the black prospective juror from jury service. The plaintiff in Rizzoli is white.

The Court then proceeded with jury selection in Simmons, a case in which the Court had, on June 16, 1986, dismissed the Monell count.² See Monell v. Dept. of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978) (holding that a municipality may be held liable as a person under § 1983). Following further voir dire and challenges for cause, the names of sixteen prospective jurors, including four blacks, were randomly selected. The defendants used each and all of their four peremptory challenges to exclude the four blacks. Plaintiffs' counsel, apparently without knowledge of the gist of the earlier sidebar conference, indicated to the Court at sidebar that defendants had so exercised their challenges as to deprive her clients, both black, from having any blacks on the jury. Counsel for the City indicated there were other considerations for the defendants' peremptory challenge of one prospective black juror, Mrs. Costa, and the Court accepts that this one peremptory challenge might possibly be valid. With regard to the other three challenges, however, counsel proffered that the case involves white police officers and the "city would probably be prejudiced if the people they decided not to have on the jury were in fact on the jury." Counsel further alluded to age as a cause of exclusion, but provided no other details. The Court instructed plaintiffs' counsel to file anything she wished in writing before trial commenced.

On October 8, 1986, counsel for each of the three cases and the jurors for Clark appeared, with trial in Clark scheduled to commence at 10:00 A.M. Out of the jury's presence, the Court, as it had indicated it would do on October 7, 1986, considered whether any of the three trials should go forward in light of the City's apparent systematic exclusion of black jurors from each of the three juries. The Court stated:

And with an eye to the equal protection clause, both as it applies to the plaintiffs and to the jurors, and to my inherent supervisory powers, and after researching the law at some length yesterday and checking what actually did occur as a matter of record in the jury strikes, the exercise of peremptory challenges, I have determined that it is incumbent upon the City of Bridgeport through its counsel to articulate acceptable reasons for the exercise of its challenges.

Tr. at 2.

The Court then directed the parties' attention to such relevant caselaw as King v. County of Nassau, 581 F.Supp. 493 (E.D. N.Y.1984), Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202, 203-04, 85 S.Ct. 824, 826, 13 L.Ed.2d 759 (1965), and Batson v. Kentucky, ___ U.S. ___, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986). The Court further explained the burden of proof necessary to establish purposeful discrimination through systematic exclusion of minorities, as enunciated in Batson, and stated:

On the record here ... I find and conclude that the striking of eight out of eight available black jurors in the course of jury selection yesterday morning shifts the burden of proof to the defense to articulate a neutral explanation relating to the challenge of each of those jurors with regard to the cases in which they were challenged. The reasons stated on the record yesterday, and I have caused that record to be typed in pertinent part, may be adequate as to one of the jurors challenged in the Simmons case, but a party cannot justify its allegedly discriminatory exercise of challenges by claims of good faith, a lack of discriminatory motive, or that black jurors will be partial to the other party. And that's the law. I'll be glad to hear from you, sir.

Tr. at 4. The assistant City attorney responded that he was well aware of the oral motion made on October 7, 1986 pertaining to the defendants' peremptory challenges of blacks and proceeded to explain why such peremptory challenges were so exercised. In so doing, the assistant City attorney remarked "I personally have knowledge of what the feeling in the city, that permeates the city with its minority population, is and the municipal government and the police department." Tr. at 6. Although he may have attempted to set forth acceptable reasons for the City's and named defendants' peremptory challenges of three of the black prospective jurors,³ he continued:

I prefer and thought that my client would get a much fairer trial if I could get people who came from surrounding circumstances and who had no feeling of kinship by race, color or creed.... It looks like a pervasive pattern, I can't deny that we did it, I'm not going to sit here and say we did it, you know, but I'm sure if you had twenty more blacks on that panel, we would have had to accept black people. We would have to make a choice of which black people would we— would have given us a better and fairer trial. For example, if I had a black person who lived in Fairfield as compared to a black person who lived in Bridgeport on that panel, I probably would have knocked the black person from Bridgeport off and retained the one from Fairfield. Because the atmosphere that prevails in this city which I know exists, that's it. I have no other defense. I knocked them off. Yes, I did. I used my peremptory challenges, ... But it's so terribly unfair to pick on one segment of the population and tell us, oh, you were pervasive. It was designed. You knocked them all off.... I can't give you any other argument. We did it. It's obvious what we did.

Tr. at 11, 12, 13.

The assistant City attorney further stated that the prospective jurors were "knocked off" because he didn't think they would give him a fair trial, they were biased, and he thought they would show prejudice. Tr. at 13-14. The Court notes that the record during voir dire is devoid of any evidence which might support such statements. When asked whether he had empirical data, he responded, "I don't have any empirical data. All I can tell you is I trust my instincts."⁴ Tr. at 16. The assistant City attorney also cited in support of the challenges the fact that black plaintiffs are involved. Tr. at 14.

The Court allowed the City attorney following plaintiffs' counsels' remarks another opportunity to speak at which time he stated:

If I had a choice between a white juror and a black juror under the facts of these cases, I'm going to take a white juror. That's what I'm saying.... Why should I put my city and my

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