Reed v. State, 43250
| Decision Date | 13 February 1974 |
| Docket Number | No. 43250,43250 |
| Citation | 292 So.2d 7 |
| Parties | Willie James REED, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Phillip A. Hubbart, Public Defender, and Bennett H. Brummer, Asst. Public Defender, for appellant.
Robert L. Shevin, Atty. Gen., and George R. Georgieff, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
This is a direct appeal from the former Criminal Court of Record of Dade County, Florida, which held that Fla.Stat. Ch. 40, F.S.A. (Jury Selection) is constitutional, the cause having been transferred by order of the District Court of Appeal, Third District, pursuant to Rule 2.1, subd. a(5)(d), 32 F.S.A. We have jurisdiction. Fla.Const., art. V, § 3(b)(1), F.S.A.
Appellant Reed (hereinafter referred to as defendant) was charged by information with robbery. Upon arraignment, defendant was adjudged insolvent, the public defender was appointed to represent him, and he entered a plea of not guilty. Defendant filed a pre-trial motion to dismiss the information or, in the alternative, to exclude the entire jury panel on the following grounds:
1. That Reed's Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated in that he was being denied a trial by a jury selected from a fair cross-section of the community;
2. That the petit jurors were not impaneled by a random impartial method of selection in that certain categories of professions (e.g., doctors, teachers) are established to insure selection from specific occupations while other classes of individuals (e.g., store clerks, carpenters) are not so classified;
3. That Fla.Stat. § 40.01, F.S.A., is unconstitutional on its face in that it sets forth a residency requirement for prospective jurors in violation of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments as incorporated in the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and the Florida Constitution;
4. That the method used to select jurors excludes other cognizable classes of persons well-suited for jury service.
The trial court denied the motion to exclude the jury panel, but permitted a subsequent hearing for the purpose of taking further testimony. Trial commenced and concluded with a jury verdict of guilty. Thereafter, in accordance with the ruling of the Court, a subsequent hearing was held and, by stipulation of counsel, the testimony of jury commissioners, deputy clerks of the circuit court, and the supervisor of elections became part of the record.
After this hearing, the trial court declared that Fla.Stat., Ch. 40, F.S.A., was constitutional. The defendant filed a notice of appeal with the District Court of Appeal, and that Court ordered the cause transferred here in that the validity of the State statute was passed upon by the trial court.
Fla.Stat. § 40.01, F.S.A., provides regulation of the process of jury selection which is not, Per se, violative of any provision of the Constitution of Florida or of the United States. Nor has the selection of jurors in Dade County created any constitutional infirmity.
Fla.Stat. § 40.01, F.S.A., provides the following general requirements for grand and petit jurors:
1. Male and female persons over the age of twenty-one years;
2. Citizens of the State who have resided in this State for one year and in their respective counties for six months;
3. Fully qualified electors of their respective counties.
Requirement three--qualification as an elector in the county--has been greatly altered as to residence requirements by case law and as to age requirements by the adoption of U.S.Const., Amend. XXVI, and legislative action. The first and second requirements mirrored similar tests for voter registration before the recent registration requirement alterations.
As to the issue of age, this Court opined a few short months ago:
State v. Silva, 259 So.2d 153, 161 (Fla.1972).
As was carefully and extensively set forth in State v. Silva, Supra, the tests for voting eligibility and jury duty eligibility are not necessarily identical, and it is within the control of the Legislature to determine juror qualifications in the absence of any constitutional mandate. We are not confronted with the 1973 Act of the Legislature (Ch. 73--21, Laws of Florida) granting adult rights to 18-year-old citizens. Under this law, the 18-year-old citizen is now eligible for jury service.
The right of the State to determine the quality of juries in the State courts has always been recognized by the United States Supreme Court. In Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 73 S.Ct. 397, 97 L.Ed. 469 (1952), the Supreme Court considered a North Carolina statute which provided that the selection of jurors should be on the basis of property tax lists. In upholding the statute, the Supreme Court said:
'States should decide for themselves the quality of their juries as best fits their situation so long as the classifications have relation to the efficiency of the jurors and are equally administered.
(344 U.S. pp. 473, 474, 73 S.Ct. p. 416, 97 L.Ed. pp. 497--498)
A similar pronouncement was made in Carter v. Greene County, 396 U.S. 320, 90 S.Ct. 518, 24 L.Ed.2d 549 (1970), where the Court upheld an Alabama statute governing jury selection by commissioners. The Supreme Court in its opinion said:
'It has long been accepted that the Constitution does not forbid the States to prescribe relevant qualifications for their jurors. The States remain free to confine the selection to citizens, to persons meeting specified qualifications of age and educational attainment, and to those possessing good intelligence, sound judgment, and fair character. 'Our duty to protect the federal constitutional rights of all does not mean we must or should impose on states our conception of the proper source of jury lists, so long as the source reasonably reflects a cross-section of the population suitable in character and intelligence for that civic duty.'
'. . . Nearly every State requires that its jurors be citizens of the United States, residents of the locality, of a specified minimum age, and able to understand English. Many of the States require that jurors be of 'good character' or the like; some, that they be 'intelligent' or 'well informed." (396 U.S. pp. 332, 333, 90 S.Ct. p. 525, 24 L.Ed.2d pp. 559--560)
Under these decisions, the Legislature has the right to prescribe that the selection of jurors shall be from the list of registered voters and be composed also of citizens who have resided in the State for one year and in their respective counties for six months. These classifications have relation to the efficiency of the jurors and expedite the administration of the selection procedure. In other words, the residents of a particular locality or a particular state for a certain period of time are more apt to consider evidence in the light of surrounding circumstances and, certainly, jury lists could be properly prepared and service obtained on prospective jurors with more efficiency and less cost.
Applying the proper tests of constitutional review, in State v. Silva, Supra, we held that Fla.Stat. § 40.01, F.S.A., is constitutional. Nothing relating to jury selection has occurred that requires a reversal of that view.
As to the specific issues raised about the application of Fla.Stat. § 40.01, F.S.A., in Dade County, the retention of separate filings for professional persons, governmental employees, and persons over the age of sixty-five years, after these groupings have lost their validity as factors in jury selection, represents a lack of efficiency, but does not represent a constitutional error. Such separate groupings should be abandoned, but there has been no showing that the intent or result of such groupings has been the establishment of a set ratio of members of these classes in the jury selection process. As such, the situation is easily distinguishable from the situation in State v. Silva, Supra, where racial ratios were carefully prepared and maintained. Nor has there been any showing of prejudice or injury to appellant by these processes.
The delay in preparation of voter cards by the Dade County Supervisor of Elections has, indeed, stalled the inclusion of perhaps thousands of prospective jurors from the jury lists. However, there was no showing that the jurors thus excluded by the burden of preparation for a national election has in any way altered the makeup of the jury lists.
Thus, none of the alleged errors in the Dade County system of jury selection has resulted in the
'(S)ystematic and intentional exclusion of any economic, social, religious, racial, political, or geographical group.' State v. Silva, 259 So.2d 153, 163 (Fla.1972).
It is this 'systematic and intentional' action on the part of a Jury Commission which creates a violation of constitutional safeguards, as we found in the Silva case. There is no evidence of such action in the case Sub judice.
Accordingly, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
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