Martin v. State

• Decision Date: 18 October 1974
• Docket Number: Nos. 273S23,273S24,s. 273S23
• Citation: 317 N.E.2d 430,262 Ind. 232
• Parties: Marina MARTIN and Kenneth Thornton, Appellants, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Page 430

317 N.E.2d 430

262 Ind. 232

Marina MARTIN and Kenneth Thornton, Appellants, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee.

Nos. 273S23, 273S24.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

Oct. 18, 1974.

[262 Ind. 247] Palmer K, Ward, David F. McNamar, Indianapolis, for appellants.

Theodore L. Sendak, Atty. Gen., Indianaplis, for appellee.

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING

DeBRULER, Justice.

Appellant Marina Martin has correctly pointed out in her petition for rehearing that an issue raised in the record and her briefs was not considered and resolved in the Court's original opinion. We now proceed ceed to consideration of that issue. Appellant contends that she was denied the equal protection of the law, guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in that she was required to exercise her ten peremptory challenges jointly with her co-defendant Kenneth Thornton. The statute which relegates appellant to this circumstance provides:

'In prosecutions for capital offenses, the defendant may challenge, peremptorily, twenty (20) jurors; in prosecutions for offenses punishable by imprisonment in the state prison, ten (10) jurors; in other prosecutions, three (3) jurors. When several defendants are tried together, they must join in their challenges.' I.C.1971, 35--1--30--2, being Burns § 9--1502.

Appellant accurately characterizes this statute as defining two classes of defendants, one class consists of those defendants who are tried alone, and the other class is comprised of those defendants who are tried jointly. Lone defendants are then granted ten peremptory challenges while co-defendants as a group are granted a total of ten peremptory challenges which they must collectively exercise. Despite the dissimilarity of treatment, we do not find this statute repugnant to the equal protection clause.

As a general principle a statute should grant equal treatment to those upon whom it acts. But if a statute should create and defined several classes and dissimilarly assign burdens or benefits of the same type between the classes, the statute is not necessarily repugnant to the equal protection clause. If there is a reasonable basis for treating the classes dissimilarly then the statute may pass muster. Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co. (1911), 220 U.S. 61, 31 S.Ct. 337, 55 L.Ed. 369. And if there is a differential trait of the classes which is reasonably related to the purposes of the statute, that fact supports the constitutional validity of the statute. Smith v. Cahoon (1931), 283 U.S. 553, 51 S.Ct. 582, 75 L.Ed. 1264; Morey v. Doud (1957), 354 U.S. 457, 77 S.Ct. 1344, 1 L.Ed.2d 1485. And we are bound to accept as shown, any conceivable state of facts which would justify the classification. Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., supra. And when rights and burdens are being parcelled out to groups comprised of different numbers of persons, the individual in each such group is not necessarily entitled to identical treatment. Dandridge v. Williams (1970), 397 U.S. 471, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 25 L.Ed.2d 491. We deem these principles applicable here since the peremptory challenge is itself not a fundamental right. Hayes v. Missouri (1887), 120 U.S. 68, 7 S.Ct. 350, 30 L.Ed. 578. This right is statutory and while it has utility as an adjunct to the jury selection process and adds to our confidence in the impartiality of the jury and the effectiveness of counsel, it is not by this important role sufficiently elevated to require the use of the more rigorous equal protection test. Shapiro v. Thompson (1969), 394 U.S. 618, 89 S.Ct. 1322, 22 L.Ed.2d 600; Carrington v. Rash (1965), 380 U.S. 89, 85 S.Ct. 775, 13 L.Ed.2d 675. The classes here are certainly not 'suspect'. McLaughlin v. Florida (1964), 379 U.S. 184, 85 S.Ct. 283, 13 L.Ed.2d 222; Graham v. Richardson (1971), 403 U.S. 365, 91 S.Ct. 1848, 29 L.Ed.2d 534.

The class to which appellant belongs, which is claimed here to be constitutionally disadvantaged, is identified by the fact that it is comprised of multiple defendants facing a joint jury trial. This class then is set aside and separately treated from the class of lone defendants. The purpose served by the limitation upon peremptory challenges is twofold. It serves to maintain the number of peremptory challenges at a workable level, and thereby it avoids the waste of judicial resources and the undue delay which would result from granting each defendant ten peremptory challenges and then even perhaps giving the State an increased number of peremptory challenges in response to that. In State v. Persinger (1963), 62 Wash.2d 362, 382 P.2d 497, and People v. King (1966), 240 Cal.App.2d 389, 49 Cal.Rptr. 562, equal protection challenges to similar statutes were rejected upon consideration of this justification alone. However, in the case before us...