Moultrie v. Martin

• Decision Date: 30 September 1982
• Docket Number: No. 81-6493,81-6493
• Citation: 690 F.2d 1078
• Parties: Joseph Clemmie MOULTRIE, Appellant, v. Joseph R. MARTIN, Warden, et al., Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 1078

690 F.2d 1078

Joseph Clemmie MOULTRIE, Appellant, v. Joseph R. MARTIN, Warden, et al., Appellees.

No. 81-6493.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued Dec. 11, 1981.

Decided Sept. 30, 1982.

Dennis N. Balske, Montgomery, Ala. (Charles B. Macloskie, Beaufort, S. C., on brief), for appellant.

Lindy P. Funkhouser, Asst. Atty. Gen., Columbia, S. C. (Daniel R. McLeod, Atty. Gen., Columbia, S. C., on brief), for appellees.

Before FIELD, Senior Circuit Judge, and WIDENER and HALL, Circuit Judges.

WIDENER, Circuit Judge:

Petitioner has appealed the denial of his petition for habeas corpus relief pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, claiming that his incarceration by South Carolina authorities is illegal. He asserts that he was denied equal protection under the fourteenth amendment because blacks allegedly were underrepresented on the grand jury which indicted him. Moultrie's claim is based wholly on statistics. He claims that he proved by way of statistics a prima facie case of discrimination which was not rebutted. We are of opinion that he did not establish a prima facie case, and affirm. We need not address the matter of rebuttal, although the district court held that if a prima facie case had been shown it was rebutted.

I

Petitioner was arrested on September 19, 1977 for the murder of a Colleton County deputy sheriff. A Colleton County grand jury composed of three blacks and fifteen whites returned an indictment against him on November 7, 1977. At trial, the petitioner sought to quash the indictment on the ground that blacks were underrepresented on the grand jury. The trial court denied the motion to quash, and, on March 6, 1978, the petitioner was convicted of voluntary manslaughter. The South Carolina Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, finding no error in the composition of the grand jury. State v. Moultrie, 273 S.C. 532, 257 S.E.2d 730 (1978). Petitioner subsequently filed his petition for habeas corpus relief in the district court, making the constitutional argument that underrepresentation of blacks on the grand jury was grounds for relief. A federal magistrate recommended that the petition be denied, and the district court agreed. The court concluded that the petitioner had failed to demonstrate a prima facie case of discrimination because there was inconclusive proof of long term discrimination in grand jury selection. The court added that even if the petitioner had demonstrated a prima facie case, the state had successfully rebutted the case by offering credible testimony on the non-discriminatory nature of the Colleton County grand jury selection process. Furthermore, the district court held the petitioner had failed to demonstrate that the factual determinations by the state courts were erroneous under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), i.e., a failure to demonstrate by convincing evidence. ¹

II

The method of selecting grand juries in Colleton County is mandated by the South Carolina Code. ² The county auditor, treasurer and clerk of court, who are all elected officials, serve as the jury commissioners. S.C.Code Ann. § 14-7-110 (1976). The commissioners meet annually to formulate a list of citizens able to perform jury duty. This list is taken from the county voting rolls and must include a minimum of two-thirds of the names on the voting rolls. ³ Potential jurors may be exempted from the list for a variety of reasons. See generally S.C.Code Ann. § 14-7-810 to 900. Testimony at trial indicated that the Colleton County jury commissioners made most such exemptions on the basis of personal knowledge. The voting rolls contain information on each registrant's race, sex and age, but the commissioners testified that they ignored this information. ⁴ From the list of potential jurors, twelve people are randomly chosen each year to serve as grand jurors. Six of these twelve subsequently are chosen at random to serve for a second year. There are thus a total of eighteen people on the Colleton County grand jury each year. Id. §§ 14-7-1510 to 1560. This system produced grand juries with the indicated racial compositions during the years 1971-77:

The record does not disclose the number of blacks who were among the 12 new grand jurors chosen each year; neither does it disclose the number of blacks selected each year to serve a second year, although this information was in petitioner's possession at the state court trial. ⁵ In 1977 the Colleton County voting rolls were 38% black. Comparable statistics on the voting rolls are not in the record for other years, although such statistics should have been provided by the petitioner in order to determine accurately whether there was underrepresentation of blacks on Colleton County grand juries over the full 1971-77 period. Again, such information was available, but not presented at the state court trial.

Petitioner has placed particular emphasis on the racial composition of the 1977 grand jury. He notes that not only was he indicted by the 1977 grand jury, but 1977 was the only year in which all three of the 1977 jury commissioners served together. The petitioner places a secondary emphasis on the 1976 grand jury statistics because two of the three 1977 commissioners also served that year. His brief continues, "The years 1971-75 have little relevance," but adds "Data for the years 1971-75, for what it is worth, is presented nevertheless." Petitioner's request that we isolate the 1977 statistics is not in accord with the mandate of the Supreme Court that "underrepresentation must be proved... over a significant period of time." Castaneda v. Partida, 430 U.S. 482, 494, 97 S.Ct. 1272, 1280, 51 L.Ed.2d 498 (1977). We note here, and explain in greater detail later, that if we honor the petitioner's request and isolate the 1977 statistics, a statistical analysis shows that the 1977 statistics do not provide even a marginal inference of discrimination. This is because of the small sample size that they represent. In this opinion, however, we will follow the mandate of the Castaneda court and consider the full 1971-77 period in determining whether petitioner has presented a prima facie case. We commence with 1971 only because that is the first year about which petitioner offered evidence.

III

The Supreme Court, on numerous occasions, has considered constitutional equal protection violations stemming from racial underrepresentation on grand juries. E.g., Castaneda v. Partida, 430 U.S. 482, 97 S.Ct. 1272, 51 L.Ed.2d 498 (1977); Sims v. Georgia, 389 U.S. 404, 88 S.Ct. 523, 19 L.Ed.2d 634 (1967); Jones v. Georgia, 389 U.S. 24, 88 S.Ct. 4, 19 L.Ed.2d 25 (1967); Whitus v. Georgia, 385 U.S. 545, 87 S.Ct. 643, 17 L.Ed.2d 599 (1967). The Court has provided the following guidelines for deciding when a criminal defendant has presented a prima facie case of an equal protection violation stemming from racial underrepresentation on a grand jury:

(I)n order to show that an equal protection violation has occurred in the context of grand jury selection, the defendant must show that the procedure employed resulted in substantial underrepresentation of his race or of the identifiable group to which he belongs. The first step is to establish that the group is one that is a recognizable, distinct class, singled out for different treatment under the laws, as written or as applied. Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. (475), at 478-479 (74 S.Ct. 667, at 670-671, 98 L.Ed. 866). Next, the degree of underrepresentation must be proved, by comparing the proportion of the group in the total population to the proportion called to serve as grand jurors, over a significant period of time. Id., at 480 (74 S.Ct., at 671). See Norris v. Alabama, 294 U.S. 587 (55 S.Ct. 579, 79 L.Ed. 1074) (1935). This method of proof, sometimes called the "rule of exclusion," has been held to be available as a method of proving discrimination in jury selection against a delineated class. Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S., at 480 (74 S.Ct., at 671). Finally, as noted above, a selection procedure that is susceptible of abuse or is not racially neutral supports the presumption of discrimination raised by the statistical showing. Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S., at 241 (96 S.Ct., at 2048); Alexander v. Louisiana, 405 U.S. (625), at 630 (92 S.Ct. 1221, at 1225, 31 L.Ed.2d 536). Once the defendant has shown substantial underrepresentation of his group, he has made out a prima facie case of discriminatory purpose, and the burden then shifts to the State to rebut the case.

Castaneda, 430 U.S. at 494-95, 97 S.Ct. at 1280 (footnote omitted).

In the instant case, the petitioner has met the first requirement of demonstrating a prima facie case because he is black and thus is a member of a recognizable, distinct class. Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229, 241, 96 S.Ct. 2040, 2048, 48 L.Ed.2d 597 (1976). The second element of the test, however, underrepresentation over a significant period of time, is more difficult to prove. Petitioner seeks to prove underrepresentation by making a raw percentage comparison between the percentage of blacks on the grand jury and the percentage of blacks in the total population of Colleton County. This method produces varying underrepresentations between 8% and 41% over the 1971-77 period, with an average of 22%.

We reject the petitioner's methodology for two reasons. First, the petitioner utilized the percentage of blacks in Colleton County (47%) as the statistic for comparison with the percentage of blacks actually on the grand juries. The use of this statistic for this purpose is inappropriate because the grand jury membership was based on the county voting rolls. See Sims, 389 U.S. at 407, 88 S.Ct. at 525; Jones, 389 U.S. at 25, 88 S.Ct. at 5. ⁶ The voting rolls were 38% black in 1977, and, for purposes of this opinion, we will assume that figure is representative of the 1971-77 period. We give the petitioner the benefit of a considerable doubt in this assumption, for he, as noted, has not...