State v. Knight, 272--I

• Decision Date: 20 January 1967
• Docket Number: No. 272--I,272--I
• Citation: 152 S.E.2d 179,269 N.C. 100
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE, v. Pirl Willard KNIGHT.

Page 179

152 S.E.2d 179

269 N.C. 100

STATE, v. Pirl Willard KNIGHT.

No. 272--I.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Jan. 20, 1967.

Stagg & Reynolds, Charlotte, for defendant appellee.

LAKE, Justice.

More than 60 years ago this Court stated clearly that Article I, § 13, of the Constitution of North Carolina, requires the sustaining of a motion to quash an indictment of a Negro who proves that the members of his race have been systematically excluded from the juries of the county in which he has been indicted. State v. Peoples, 131 N.C. 784, 42 S.E. 814. Since that time it has never been doubted by the courts of this State that the provisions of the Constitution of North Carolina, Article I, §§ 13 and 17, are to be so interpreted and that such systematic exclusion from the grand jury of persons, otherwise qualified, because of their race, requires, upon motion duly made, the quashing of an indictment returned against a member of that race by such grand jury irrespective of the fact that all members of the grand jury were, themselves, qualified jurors. State v. Wilson, 262 N.C. 419, 137 S.E.2d 109; State v. Perry, 250 N.C. 119, 108 S.E.2d 447; Miller v. State, 237 N.C. 29, 74 S.E.2d 513.

Similarly, the Supreme Court of the United States in Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303, 25 L.Ed. 664, and numerous subsequent decisions, has declared that the rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States are violated by the indictment of a defendant by a grand jury from which the members of the defendant's race have been excluded by a statute of the state, the Court there saying, 'The constitution of juries is a very essential part of the protection such a mode of trial is intended to secure.' In Thiel v. Southern Pacific Company, 328 U.S. 217, 66 S.Ct. 984, 90 L.Ed. 1181, 166 A.L.R. 1412, dealing with the selection of jurors in a federal court, the Court, speaking through Mr. Justice Murphy, said the 'exclusion of all those who earn a daily wage cannot be justified by federal or state law,' and, 'The American tradition of trial by jury, considered in connection with either criminal or civil proceedings, necessarily contemplates an impartial jury drawn from a cross-section of the community.' In Strauder v. West Virginia, supra, the Court observed, 'Nor if a law should be passed excluding all naturalized Celtic Irishmen, would there be any doubt of its inconsistency with the spirit of the Amendment.'

In Fay v. People of State of New York, 332 U.S. 261, 67 S.Ct. 1613, 91 L.Ed. 2043, the Court held that the selection of the jury which tried the defendant from a 'blue ribbon' list did not violate the rights of the defendant under the Fourteenth Amendment, saying, 'No significant difference in viewpoint between those allegedly excluded and those permitted to serve has been proved and nothing in our experience permits us to assume it.' In the Trial case, supra, the Court said that its decision 'does not mean of course, that every jury must contain representatives of all the economic, social, religious, racial, political and geographical groups of the community.' In the Fay case, supra, the Court, while reserving the question of whether the defendant's lack of identity with a group, excluded by state law or by systematic state action from jury service, would necessarily be a bar to his attack upon an indictment and conviction by a grand jury and a petit jury so selected, said, '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.'

It would thus appear to be the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, as interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States, that even the complete exclusion, by state law, of a group or class of persons from eligibility for jury service will not make invalid an indictment by a grand jury, selected in accordance with such state law, so long as there is no reasonable basis for the conclusion that the ineligible group or class would bring to the deliberations of the jury a point of view not otherwise represented upon it, at least where the defendant is not a member of the excluded group. We now so hold with reference to the Constitution of North Carolina, Article I, §§ 13 and 17, reserving for future determination the question of whether the identity of the defendant with a group so excluded from jury service will, alone, require a different result.

In the present case, the defendant was indicted for murder. The record does not indicate the race of either the defendant or the alleged victim, or that either of them was the member of any other group or class of persons, and we have no knowledge of any such circumstance. The statutes of which the defendant now complains exempt from jury service persons who engage in certain occupations. These are as varied as physicians, railroad brakemen, funeral directors, ministers, gristmillers and linotype operators. There is no basis upon which we can conclude reasonably that persons engaged in any of these occupations, or those who are members of any of the other groups exempted from jury service by these statutes, would bring to the deliberations of a jury any point of view with reference to murder, or any other criminal offense, which would be otherwise unrepresented upon a grand or petit jury considering such matter.

We observe further that the statutes of which the defendant complains do not exclude anyone from jury service. Indeed, this record does not show that no member of any of the exempted classes served upon the grand jury which indicted this defendant. Each of these statutes merely provides for those in the designated classes or groups an exemption from the duty which would rest upon them apart from such statute. Nothing else appearing, a physician, a railroad brakeman, the mother of small children, or any member of any other group designated in any of these statutes, is eligible to serve upon any grand or petit jury, if summoned for such duty and if such person does not assert his or her statutory right of exemption. See: People v. Rawn, 90 Mich. 377, 51 N.W. 522; 24 Am.Jur., Grand Jury, § 12.

In sustaining the validity of a Florida statute providing for all women an absolute exemption from jury service, the Supreme Court of the United States said in Hoyt v. State of Florida, 368 U.S. 57, 82 S.Ct. 159, 7 L.Ed.2d 118:

'Manifestly, Florida's § 40.01(1) does not purport to exclude women from state jury service. Rather, the statute 'gives to women the privilege to serve but does not impose service as a duty.' Fay v. (People of State of) New York, supra, 332 U.S. at 277, 67 S.Ct. at 1622. It accords women an absolute exemption from jury service unless they expressly waive that privilege. This is not to say, however, that what in form may be only an exemption of a particular class of persons can in no circumstances be regarded as an exclusion of that class. Where, as here an exemption of a class in the community is asserted to be in substance an exclusionary device, the relevant inquiry is whether the exemption itself is based on some reasonable classification and whether the manner in which it is exercisable rests on some rational foundation. * * *

'We cannot say that it is constitutionally impermissible for a State, acting in pursuit of the general welfare, to conclude that a woman should be relieved from the civic duty of jury service unless she herself determines that such service is consistent with her own special responsibilities. * * *

'It is true, of course, that Florida could have limited the exemption, as some other States have done, only to women who have family responsibilities. (Citing, among others, N.C.G.S. § 9--19, without further comment.) But we cannot regard it as irrational for a state legislature to consider preferable a broad exemption, whether born of the State's historic public policy or of a determination that it would not be administratively feasible to decide in each individual instance whether the family responsibilities of a prospective female juror were serious enough to warrant an exemption.'

Thus, so far as the requirements of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution are concerned, it is sufficient, in order to sustain a state statutory exemption, that there is reasonable ground for the Legislature to believe that the public interest and general welfare will be better served by the grant of the exemption than by subjecting the members of the exempted class to the duty imposed upon other members of the community. We so hold with reference to the provisions of Article I, § 17, of the Constitution of North Carolina.

Applying this principle to an administrative practice of granting exemptions to groups similar to those exempted by the statutes...