Williams v. Florida, 96-8079-CIV-JORDAN.
| Citation | 109 F.Supp.2d 1372 |
| Decision Date | 23 August 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. 96-8079-CIV-JORDAN.,96-8079-CIV-JORDAN. |
| Parties | Johnnie Lee WILLIAMS, Petitioner, v. State of FLORIDA, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Florida |
Johnnie Lee Williams, Polk City, FL, pro se.
Carol Cobourn Asbury, Florida Atty General's Office, West Palm Beach, FL, for State of Florida.
ORDER DENYING PETITION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS
In 1983, a jury in Palm Beach County, Florida, found Johnnie Lee Williams guilty of first-degree murder. Mr. Williams challenges that conviction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, arguing that his jury venire was drawn from a pool of potential jurors from which blacks were systematically excluded in violation of his Sixth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Mr. Williams also contends that the grand jury that indicted him was unconstitutionally drawn.
The judge who previously presided over this case held that the petition presented only questions of state law and that Mr. Williams had not exhausted his state law remedies. See Final Judgment [D.E. 10] (Nov. 20, 1996). The Eleventh Circuit reversed and remanded, finding that the petition presented issues of federal constitutional law and that Mr. Williams may have exhausted his state court remedies. See Mandate of United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit [D.E. 20] (July 23, 1998) (per curiam). The magistrate judge thereafter examined the merits of Mr. Williams' petition and recommended that the petition be denied. See Supplemental Report of Magistrate Judge [D.E. 28] (Oct. 8, 1999). Mr. Williams took issue with the report. See Petitioner's Objections to Magistrate's Report [D.E. 32] (Nov. 8, 1999). Upon a de novo review of the record, I conclude that Mr. Williams' petition for writ of habeas corpus must be denied.
Palm Beach County comprises the state's fifteenth judicial district. Six years after Mr. Williams' conviction, the Florida Supreme Court held that the jury selection process in the fifteenth judicial district was unconstitutional. See Spencer v. Florida, 545 So.2d 1352, 1353-54 (Fla.1989). The district had been divided into two sub-districts of uneven size. More than half of those eligible for jury duty in the western sub-district were black. In the eastern sub-district, whose population was forty times more numerous, only about 6.4 percent of those eligible to serve on juries were black. A defendant charged with committing a crime in the predominantly white, eastern sub-district was required to be tried in that sub-district by a jury drawn from there. On the other hand, a defendant charged with committing a crime in the predominantly black, western sub-district could choose either sub-district for trial. The Florida Supreme Court held that removing 17 percent of Palm Beach County's black population from jury pools in the eastern sub-district resulted in a failure to "draw prospective jurors from a fairly representative cross-section" of the district. Id. at 1354. It further held that allowing only some defendants a choice of venue violated equal protection guarantees of the state and federal constitutions. See id. at 1355. In a later case, the Florida Supreme Court held that Spencer could apply retroactively where fundamental fairness counseled against strict adherence to the doctrine of finality, such as when the defendant challenged the division of Palm Beach County at the trial and appellate levels. See Moreland v. Florida, 582 So.2d 618, 620 (Fla.1991).
Mr. Williams has not presented any evidence regarding the racial composition of the pool from which his jury venire was drawn. Instead, he relies exclusively on Spencer to support his petition, maintaining that he should not have to "produc[e] statistical data from the early 1980s concerning the population figures ... in Palm Beach County" because "Spencer clearly established the proof required." Petitioner's Objections to Magistrate's Report at 3. Mr. Williams is incorrect. Spencer does not set forth the evidence necessary to support his claims. Moreover, the Florida Supreme Court has held that Spencer applies retroactively only in a narrow class of cases, see Moreland, 582 So.2d at 620, and neither Spencer's rationale nor its holding — to the extent that the decision interprets the United States Constitution — is binding in federal court. See Mann v. Dugger, 844 F.2d 1446, 1454 n. 10 (11th Cir.1988); Freeman v. Georgia, 599 F.2d 65, 69 (5th Cir.1979).
It should be emphasized at the outset that the Florida Supreme Court did not find in Spencer that the division of Palm Beach County was the result of gerrymandering. It is true that the western sub-district had a large black population — indeed the majority of that sub-district was black. See 545 So.2d at 1354. Moreover, the Florida Supreme Court noted that a Florida circuit court had found that the county could have been split divided into sub-districts in another way. See id. at 1355 (citing Florida v. Alix Joseph, No. 87-619-CF-A02 (Fla. 15th Cir.Ct. March 27, 1987)). Thus, while Spencer provides some cause for suspicion, it provides no evidence. Indeed, the Florida Supreme Court determined that the Spencer record did not "establish any intentional discriminatory conduct" in the sub-districting of Palm Beach County. 545 So.2d at 1354. Without some evidence — for example, testimony or documents describing the rationale for the decision to divide Palm Beach County and the manner in which it was effected—gerrymandering cannot be presumed. See United States v. Grisham, 63 F.3d 1074, 1080 (11th Cir.1995); United States v. Cannady, 54 F.3d 544, 547 (9th Cir.1995); United States v. Test, 550 F.2d 577, 594 (10th Cir.1976); United States v. Johnson, 21 F.Supp.2d 329, 336 (S.D.N.Y. 1998); United States v. Kenny, 883 F.Supp. 869, 875-76 (E.D.N.Y.1995); United States v. Garces, 849 F.Supp. 852, 857 (E.D.N.Y.1994).
Absent evidence of gerrymandering, to make a case that his Sixth Amendment right to a jury drawn from a fair cross-section of the community was violated Mr. Williams must show (1) that blacks were a distinctive group in the community, (2) that representation of blacks in jury venires was not fair and reasonable in relation to the number of blacks eligible for jury duty, and (3) that this underrepresentation was due to the systematic exclusion of blacks in the jury-selection process. See Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357, 364, 99 S.Ct. 664, 58 L.Ed.2d 579 (1979); Grisham, 63 F.3d at 1078. There is no doubt that blacks are a distinctive group, see Cunningham v. Zant, 928 F.2d 1006, 1013 (11th Cir.1991), and there is no reason to question Spencer's holding that the division of Palm Beach County systematically excluded "a significant portion of the black population from the jury pool for the West Palm Beach district...." 545 So.2d at 1355. Mr. Williams fails, however, to establish the second element of his case.
Under Eleventh Circuit precedent, whether the second element is satisfied depends in this case on the absolute disparity between the percentage of those eligible for jury duty in Palm Beach County who are black and the percentage of those qualified to serve as jurors in the western sub-district (where Mr. Williams was tried) who are black. See Grisham, 63 F.3d at 1078. If the absolute disparity is 10 percentage points or fewer, then the representation of blacks in the jury pool is not unfair and unreasonable. See id. at 1078-79; United States v. Rodriguez, 776 F.2d 1509, 1511 (11th Cir.1985); United States v. Tuttle, 729 F.2d 1325, 1327 (11th Cir.1984). The application of this test under these facts presents a fundamental problem which has not been resolved by the Eleventh Circuit. Spencer states that at an unspecified point in time 7.487 percent of voters registered in Palm Beach County — i.e. those people eligible for jury duty — were black. To determine whether Mr. Williams' constitutional rights may have been violated, the percentage of qualified potential jurors in the eastern district of Palm Beach County would have to be compared with the 7.487 figure. Because the disparity would be less than 10 percentage points even if no blacks qualified for jury duty, Mr. Williams cannot establish his case under the Eleventh Circuit's absolute disparity test.
The First Circuit and the former Fifth Circuit have acknowledged this problem with the 10-percent absolute disparity test but have not suggested an alternative. See United States v. Royal, 174 F.3d 1, 9 n. 6 (1st Cir.1999); United States v. Butler, 615 F.2d 685, 686 (5th Cir.1980) (per curiam); United States v. Maskeny, 609 F.2d 183, 190 (5th Cir.1980). In Royal, the First Circuit considered whether another statistical methodology should be used to evaluate fair cross-section challenges and reviewed caselaw from several circuits as well as law review articles. See 174 F.3d at 6-11. Ultimately, the First Circuit acknowledged that absolute disparity may be "open to criticism on statistical or logical grounds" but applied it based on the force of precedent. See id. at 10.
While this might well be a case in which the absolute disparity test should not be used, the absence of any statistical data other than that reported in Spencer makes it just as impossible to apply an alternative methodology as it is to apply the absolute disparity test. To obtain the information necessary for determining whether Mr. Williams' petition was meritorious, I ordered the state to provide the relevant statistics. See Order [D.E. 33] at 3 (April 13, 2000). The state responded that the records have been purged in accordance with the state court's routine procedures and no longer exist. See Response to Court's Order [D.E. 34] (May 11, 2000). Mr. Williams simultaneously and industrially undertook to locate the necessary records himself. See Status Report [D.E. 35] (May 18, 2000). He produced the list of the twelve jurors and two alternates who served at his...
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