State v. Anaya

• Decision Date: 24 February 1983
• Citation: 456 A.2d 1255
• Parties: STATE of Maine v. Linda ANAYA.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

Page 1255

456 A.2d 1255

STATE of Maine v. Linda ANAYA.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Argued Jan. 12, 1983.

Decided Feb. 24, 1983.

Charles K. Leadbetter, Joseph E. Wannemacher, Anita St. Onge (orally), Asst. Attys. Gen., Augusta, for plaintiff.

Jackson & Pallas, Francis M. Jackson (orally), Westbrook, for defendant.

Before McKUSICK, C.J., and GODFREY, ROBERTS, CARTER, VIOLETTE and WATHEN, JJ.

McKUSICK, Chief Justice.

Defendant Linda Anaya was convicted of manslaughter, 17-A M.R.S.A. § 203(1)(A) (Pamph.1982), after a jury trial in the Superior Court (Cumberland County). In this appeal, she claims that the trial justice erred in 1) denying her motion challenging the composition of the jury pool from which her trial jury was drawn; 2) denying her motion for public funds with which to pursue her jury pool challenge; 3) failing to rule upon or dismissing her "motions to reconsider" the order limiting the public funds available to defendant for her jury pool challenge; 4) admitting testimony about a conversation between defendant and the victim a few months before his death; and 5) allowing the victim's sister-in-law to testify as a rebuttal witness for the State. We hold that there was no error on the part of the trial justice on any of these issues, and we affirm the judgment of conviction.

This is the second time this case has come to the Law Court. Linda Anaya was indicted for murder by a Cumberland County grand jury on May 6, 1980. The indictment charged her with killing her live-in boyfriend, Frank H. Williams, Jr., "on or about the 8th day of April, 1980." Defendant was found indigent and counsel was appointed to represent her. Before trial, defendant made a number of motions aimed at challenging the procedure used in Cumberland County to select grand and petit jurors, ¹ including a motion for the appointment of experts (at public expense) to study the juror selection process and motions to dismiss her indictment on the ground that the grand jury that handed it up was not drawn from a pool fairly representing a cross-section of her community. All were denied.

On December 8, 1980, after a jury trial, Anaya was found guilty of manslaughter, and she appealed to the Law Court. In State v. Anaya, 438 A.2d 892 (Me.1981) ("Anaya I "), we vacated the judgment of the Superior Court. Although the holding of Anaya I was based on the presiding justice's refusal to allow a psychologist and a medical doctor to testify in front of the jury about the "battered wife syndrome" and its possible applicability to defendant Anaya, the opinion went on to discuss defendant's attempts to challenge Cumberland County's grand and petit jury arrays. 438 A.2d at 895.

In late January, 1982, well before defendant's second trial began, she moved in the Superior Court for the appointment of Craig McEwen, Ph.D., a Bowdoin College sociologist, as an expert witness to examine "the nature of the grand and petit jury pools in Cumberland County," and for "reasonable" compensation of Dr. McEwen. The motion was granted. Defendant also moved successfully that she be provided with copies of questionnaires that had been sent out to and returned by members of the 1980-81 and 1981-82 Cumberland County jury pools. On April 28, 1982, less than two weeks prior to the May 10 date set for the beginning of her second trial, defendant moved for the appointment of an expert statistician to help Dr. McEwen analyze the composition of Cumberland County jury pools and for the "authorization" of substantial additional funding for expert analysis of the pools.

A hearing was held on those two motions on May 3, 1982. Ruling from the bench, the Superior Court justice granted the motion for appointment of an expert in statistics and allotted defendant (in addition to the previously approved compensation for Dr. McEwen) "a sum not to exceed $500," out of which she could pursue her jury pool analysis and compensate the statistician.

On May 10, 1982, defendant waived indictment and was arraigned on an information charging her with manslaughter. That same day, defense counsel asked the court to continue the trial until a "new and properly constituted" jury pool could be drawn from which defendant's trial jury could be selected. Through witnesses, defense counsel attempted to show that Cumberland County's juror selection system produced jury pools that failed to contain a fair cross-section of the community from which they were drawn. Specifically, he argued that persons aged 18 through 24, persons with less than a high school education, and "blue-collar" workers were significantly underrepresented in recent county jury pools. The Superior Court justice denied defendant's jury pool challenge, and her trial began.

The prosecution, in its case-in-chief, called four witnesses to testify about the events of May 8 and 9, 1980. The jury could reasonably have concluded from the State's evidence that Anaya stabbed Williams in the back with a knife after the couple had quarreled in the kitchen of the Brunswick apartment they shared, and that the stab wounds caused Williams' death shortly thereafter at a nearby hospital.

Defense counsel, through cross-examination of the State's witnesses and through ten defense witnesses, including a medical doctor and a psychologist, attempted to show that defendant had been a victim of the so-called "battered wife" syndrome throughout her relationship with Williams. It was defense counsel's theory that Anaya had killed Williams in self-defense; the battered-wife evidence was intended to show that she was justified in using deadly force against Williams because of her reasonable belief--reasonable in light of the history of their relationship--that Williams was about to use deadly force against her and that it was necessary for her to use deadly force of her own to defend herself.

After the defense presentation had concluded, the State called the victim's sister-in-law, Patricia Williams, as a rebuttal witness. Over defendant's objections, Patricia was allowed to tell the jury about an incident that had occurred in February of 1980 and to repeat a certain statement the victim had made at that time.

On May 13, 1982, the jury began deliberating, after hearing final arguments from both sides and instructions from the presiding justice. On May 14, the jury came in with a verdict, finding Anaya guilty of manslaughter. On that same day, defendant was sentenced and she immediately filed a notice of appeal to this court.

I. The Jury Pool Challenge

The sixth amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees a criminal defendant a trial "by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed," applies to state criminal trials through the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 149, 88 S.Ct. 1444, 1447, 20 L.Ed.2d 491 (1968). The right to an impartial jury trial includes the right to a petit jury drawn from a "source fairly representative of the community." Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 538, 95 S.Ct. 692, 702, 42 L.Ed.2d 690 (1975). Taylor held that "the exclusion of women from jury venires deprives a criminal defendant of his Sixth Amendment right to trial by an impartial jury drawn from a fair cross section of the community." 419 U.S. at 535-36, 95 S.Ct. at 700. Elaborating on the "fair cross-section" rule, the Supreme Court held in Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357, 99 S.Ct. 664, 58 L.Ed.2d 579 (1979), that a defendant has established a "prima facie violation" of the requirement when he has shown:

(1) that the group alleged to be excluded is a "distinctive" group in the community; (2) that the representation of this group in venires from which juries are selected is not fair and reasonable in relation to the number of such persons in the community; and (3) that this underrepresentation is due to systematic exclusion of the group in the jury selection process.

439 U.S. at 364, 99 S.Ct. at 668. There is no requirement that the defendant be a member of the "distinctive" group allegedly excluded from jury venires, see Taylor, 419 U.S. at 526, 95 S.Ct. at 695, or that he show that any particular prejudice to him has resulted from the unlawful juror selection system, see id. at 538, 95 S.Ct. at 701 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting). The fair cross-section rule is designed in part to ensure "[c]ommunity participation in the administration of the criminal laws," which is "critical to public confidence in the fairness of the criminal justice system." Id. at 530, 95 S.Ct. at 698. ²

Using language similar to that of the Bill of Rights, our Maine Constitution gives a criminal defendant the right to an "impartial trial ... by a jury of the vicinity." Me.Const. art. I, § 6. In State v. Clapp, 335 A.2d 897 (Me.1975), we held that because the sixth amendment had been incorporated into the fourteenth amendment's due process clause, the federal fair cross-section requirement "becomes automatically absorbed into the guarantee of jury trial embodied in Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution of Maine." 335 A.2d at 900. We reaffirmed the substantial identity of a defendant's rights under the state and the federal jury trial provisions in Anaya I, 438 A.2d at 895 n. 3, where we quoted Duren v. Missouri's tripartite test for a prima facie violation of the fair cross-section requirement. It is that test, therefore, which we apply today to determine whether Linda Anaya has established a violation of her rights under either the federal or the state constitution. Because we conclude that she fails the first prong of the Duren test, we hold that the Superior Court was correct to deny her challenge.

The three groups that Anaya identifies as being systematically underrepresented in Cumberland County jury pools are persons aged 18 through 24, persons with less than a high school education, and "blue-collar" workers. ³ In considering whether these groups are "distinctive"...