Mayfield v. Steed, PB-71-C-44.

• Decision Date: 19 July 1972
• Docket Number: No. PB-71-C-44.,PB-71-C-44.
• Citation: 345 F. Supp. 806
• Parties: William Archie MAYFIELD, Jr., Petitioner, v. Bill STEED, Acting Commissioner of the Department of Corrections, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Arkansas

345 F. Supp. 806

William Archie MAYFIELD, Jr., Petitioner, v. Bill STEED, Acting Commissioner of the Department of Corrections, Respondent.

No. PB-71-C-44.

United States District Court, E. D. Arkansas, Pine Bluff Division.

July 19, 1972.

Edward I. Staten, Reinberger, Eilbott, Smith & Staten, Pine Bluff, Ark., John Wm. Murphy, Fayetteville, Ark., for petitioner.

Milton Lueken, Asst. Atty. Gen. of Ark., Little Rock, Ark., for respondent.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

EISELE, District Judge.

This is a Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus. The petitioner, William Archie Mayfield, Jr., was convicted on December 10, 1969, of the crime of second degree murder. His conviction was appealed to the Arkansas Supreme Court, and it was affirmed on October 12, 1970. Mayfield v. State, 249 Ark. 203, 458 S.W.2d 725 (1970). Petitioner is presently incarcerated in the Arkansas Department of Correction.

The only issue raised by this petition is identical to one of the issues raised in Mayfield's appeal in the state courts, to wit: was petitioner, a male, deprived of due process of law by the systematic exclusion of women from the jury panel. By the agreement of the parties, the case has been submitted on the record from the state courts, the pleadings in this case and briefs.

It has been admitted and stipulated by the respondent herein that the jury commissioners for the Eastern District of Carroll County systematically excluded women from the jury panel.¹ Nonetheless, respondent states that petitioner is not entitled to relief because he lacks standing to challenge the exclusion and, further, that the exclusion of women from the jury panel was justified. Respondent relies principally on Bailey v. State, 215 Ark. 53, 219 S.W.2d 424 (1949), and Black v. State, 215 Ark. 618, 222 S.W.2d 816 (1949).

In Bailey, the Arkansas Supreme Court stated:

"We think that the inference deductible from the Fay case (Fay v. New York, 332 U.S. 261, 67 S.Ct. 1613, 91 L.Ed. 2043) is that where a state does not impose upon women as a class the inescapable duty of jury service, a defendant who complains that due process was denied, or that he was not afforded the equal protection contemplated by the Fourteenth Amendment, must show something more than continuing failure of jury commissioners to call women for jury service . . .".

The respondent also relies on the following statement in Fay, supra, at p. 287, 67 S.Ct. at p. 1627: "This Court, however, has never entertained a defendant's objections to exclusions from the jury except when he was a member of the excluded class". The question of systematic exclusion of women was raised by petitioner at the opening of the trial in the Circuit Court of Carroll County, Arkansas.

In essence, the respondent argues that a defendant, not a member of the class excluded, must show some affirmative evidence of actual harm or error caused by the exclusion. The United States Supreme Court, in the recent case of Peters v. Kiff, 407 U.S. 493, 92 S.Ct. 2163, 33 L.Ed.2d 83 (decided June 22, 1972), held that such an argument takes too narrow a view of the kinds of harm that flow from discrimination in the jury selection process.

Peters concerned a petition by a white man alleging that the systematic exclusion of blacks from the jury panel deprived him of his rights to due process and equal protection. The Court, in deciding that petitioner had standing to raise such an argument even though he was not a member of the class excluded, states:

"In short, when a grand or petit jury has been selected on an impermissible basis, the existence of a constitutional violation does not depend on the circumstances of the person making the claim", at p. 498 of 407 U.S., at p. 2166 of 92 S.Ct.

* * * * * *

". . . the Court has also recognized that the exclusion of a discernible class from jury service injures not only those defendants who belong to the excluded class, but other defendants as well, in that it destroys the possibility that the jury will reflect a representative cross-section of the community", at p. 500 of 407 U.S., at p. 2167 of 92 S.Ct.

* * * * * *

"If it were possible to say with confidence that the risk of bias resulting from the arbitrary action involved here were confined to cases involving Negro defendants, then perhaps the right to challenge the tribunal on that ground could be similarly confined. The case of the white defendant might then be thought to present a species of harmless error.

"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", at p. 503 of 407 U.S., at pp. 2168-2169 of 92 S.Ct.

* * * * * *

"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 their exclusion deprives the jury of a perspective on human events that may have unsuspected importance in any case that may be presented", at p. 503 of 407 U.S., at p. 2169 of 92 S.Ct.

Although Peters concerned a white man challenging the exclusion of blacks from the panel, it is clear that the rationale of the Supreme Court in that case applies to a man challenging the exclusion of women. At page 504 of 407 U.S., at p. 2169 of 92 S.Ct., the Court states in footnote 12:

"In rejecting, for the federal courts, the exclusion of women from jury service, this Court made the following observations, which are equally relevant to the exclusion of other discernible groups:

"The truth is that the two sexes are not fungible; a community made up exclusively of one is different from a community composed of both; the

...