Valentine v. State

• Citation: 454 P.3d 709
• Decision Date: 19 December 2019
• Docket Number: No. 74468,74468
• Parties: Keandre VALENTINE, Appellant, v. The STATE of Nevada, Respondent.
• Court: Supreme Court of Nevada

454 P.3d 709

Keandre VALENTINE, Appellant,

v.The STATE of Nevada, Respondent.

No. 74468

Supreme Court of Nevada.

FILED DECEMBER 19, 2019

Darin F. Imlay, Public Defender, and Sharon G. Dickinson, Deputy Public Defender, Clark County, for Appellant.

Aaron D. Ford, Attorney General, Carson City; Steven B. Wolfson, District Attorney, Krista D. Barrie, Chief Deputy District Attorney, and Michael R. Dickerson, Deputy District Attorney, Clark County, for Respondent.

BEFORE HARDESTY, STIGLICH and SILVER, JJ.

OPINION

By the Court, STIGLICH, J.:

A defendant has the right to a jury chosen from a fair cross section of the community, as guaranteed by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. This court has addressed the showing a defendant must make to establish a prima facie violation of this right. We have said little, however, about when an evidentiary hearing may be warranted on a fair-cross-section claim. Faced with that issue in this case, we hold that an evidentiary hearing is warranted on a fair-cross-section challenge when a defendant makes specific allegations that, if true, would be sufficient to establish a prima facie violation of the fair-cross-section requirement. Because the defendant in this matter made specific factual allegations that could be sufficient to establish a prima facie violation of the fair-cross-section requirement and those allegations were not disproved, the district court abused its discretion by denying Valentine’s request for an evidentiary hearing. None of Valentine’s other claims warrant a new trial. We therefore vacate the judgment of conviction and remand for further proceedings as to the fair-cross-section challenge.

BACKGROUND

Appellant Keandre Valentine was convicted by a jury of multiple crimes stemming from a series of five armed robberies in Las Vegas, Nevada. Before trial, Valentine objected to the 45-person venire and claimed a violation of his right to a jury selected from a fair cross section of the community. He argued that two distinctive groups in the community—African Americans and Hispanics—were not fairly and reasonably represented in the venire when compared with their representation in the community. Valentine asserted that the underrepresentation was caused by systematic exclusion, proffering two theories as to how the system used in Clark County excludes distinctive groups. His first theory was that the system did not enforce jury summonses; his second theory was that the system sent out an equal number of summonses to citizens located in each postal ZIP code without ascertaining the percentage of the population in each ZIP code. Valentine requested an evidentiary hearing, which was denied. The district court found that the two groups were distinctive groups in the community and that one group—Hispanics—was not fairly and reasonably represented in the venire when compared to its representation in the community. However, the district court found that the underrepresentation was not due to systematic exclusion, relying on the jury commissioner’s testimony regarding the jury selection process two years earlier in another case and on this court’s resolution of fair-cross-section claims in various unpublished decisions. The court thus denied the constitutional challenge.

DISCUSSION

Fair-cross-section challenge warranted an evidentiary hearing

Valentine claims the district court committed structural error by denying his fair-cross-section challenge without conducting an evidentiary hearing. We review the district court’s denial of Valentine’s request for an evidentiary hearing for an abuse of discretion. See Berry v. State , 131 Nev. 957, 969, 363 P.3d 1148, 1156 (2015) (reviewing denial of request for an evidentiary hearing on a postconviction petition for a writ of habeas corpus); accord United States v. Schafer, 625 F.3d 629, 635 (9th Cir. 2010) (reviewing denial of request for an evidentiary hearing on a motion to dismiss an indictment); United States v. Terry, 60 F.3d 1541, 1544 n.2 (11th Cir. 1995) (reviewing denial of request for an evidentiary hearing on fair-cross-section challenge to statute exempting police officers from jury service).

"Both the Fourteenth and the Sixth Amendments to the United States Constitution guarantee a defendant the right to a trial before a jury selected from a representative cross-section of the community." Evans v. State, 112 Nev. 1172, 1186, 926 P.2d 265, 274 (1996). While this right does not require that the jury "mirror the community and reflect the various distinctive groups in the population," it does require "that the jury wheels, pools of names, panels, or venires from which juries are drawn must not systematically exclude distinctive groups in the community and thereby fail to be reasonably representative thereof." Id. at 1186, 926 P.2d at 274-75 (internal quotation marks omitted). "Thus, as long as the jury selection process is designed to select jurors from a fair cross section of the community, then random variations that produce venires without a specific class of persons or with an abundance of that class are permissible." Williams v. State, 121 Nev. 934, 940, 125 P.3d 627, 631 (2005).

A defendant alleging a violation of the right to a jury selected from a fair cross section of the community must first establish a prima facie violation of the right by showing

(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.

Evans , 112 Nev. at 1186, 926 P.2d at 275 (quoting Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357, 364, 99 S.Ct. 664, 58 L.Ed.2d 579 (1979) ). To determine "[w]hether a certain percentage is a fair representation of a group," this court uses "the absolute and comparative disparity between the actual percentage in the venire and the percentage of the group in the community." Williams, 121 Nev. at 940 n.9, 125 P.3d at 631 n.9. And to determine whether systematic exclusion has been shown, we consider if the underrepresentation of a distinctive group is "inherent in the particular jury-selection process utilized." Evans, 112 Nev. at 1186-87, 926 P.2d at 275 (internal quotation marks omitted). Only after a defendant demonstrates a prima facie violation of the right does "the burden shift [ ] to the government to show that the disparity is justified by a significant state interest." Id. at 1187, 926 P.2d at 275.

Here, Valentine asserted that African Americans and Hispanics were not fairly and reasonably represented in the venire. Both African Americans and Hispanics are recognized as distinctive groups. See id. ; see also United States v. Esquivel, 88 F.3d 722, 726 (9th Cir. 1996). And the district court correctly used the absolute and comparative disparity between the percentage of each distinct group in the venire and the percentage in the community to determine that African Americans were fairly and reasonably represented in the venire but that Hispanics were not. See Williams, 121 Nev. at 940 n.9, 125 P.3d at 631 n.9 ("Comparative disparities over 50% indicate that the representation of [a distinct group] is likely not fair and reasonable."). The district court denied Valentine’s challenge as to Hispanics based on the third prong—systematic exclusion.

We conclude the district court abused its discretion in denying Valentine’s request for an evidentiary hearing. Although this court has not articulated the circumstances in which a district court should hold an evidentiary hearing when presented with a fair-cross-section challenge, it has done so in other contexts. For example, this court has held that an evidentiary hearing is warranted on a postconviction petition for a writ of habeas corpus when the petitioner has "assert[ed] claims supported by specific factual allegations [that are] not belied by the record [and] that, if true, would entitle him to relief." Mann v. State, 118 Nev. 351, 354, 46 P.3d 1228, 1230 (2002) ; see also Hargrove v. State, 100 Nev. 498, 502, 686 P.2d 222, 225 (1984). Most of those circumstances are similarly relevant when deciding whether an evidentiary hearing is warranted on a defendant’s fair-cross-section challenge, given the defendant’s burden of demonstrating a prima facie violation. In particular, it makes no sense to hold an evidentiary hearing if the defendant makes only general allegations that are not sufficient to demonstrate a prima facie violation or if the defendant’s specific allegations are not sufficient to demonstrate a prima facie violation as a matter of law. See Terry , 60 F.3d at 1544 n.2 (explaining that no evidentiary hearing is warranted on a fair-cross-section challenge if no set of facts could be developed that "would be significant legally"). But unlike the postconviction context where the claims are case specific, a fair-cross-section challenge is focused on systematic exclusion and therefore is not case specific. Because of that systematic focus, it makes little sense to require an evidentiary hearing on a fair-cross-section challenge that has been disproved in another case absent a showing that the record in the prior case is not complete or reliable.¹ With these considerations in mind, we hold that an evidentiary hearing is warranted on a fair-cross-section challenge when a defendant makes specific allegations that, if true, would be sufficient to establish a prima facie violation of the fair-cross-section requirement.²

Applying that standard, we conclude that Valentine was entitled to an evidentiary hearing as to his allegation of systematic exclusion of Hispanics. Valentine did more than make a general assertion of systematic exclusion. In particular, Valentine made specific allegations that the system used to select jurors in the ...