State High Court Bans Exclusion of Latinos From Juries

Condemning so much as an appearance of bias against Latinos, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that prosecutors cannot systematically exclude Spanish-surnamed people from juries.

The court ruled seven years ago that prosecutors could not systematically exclude members of certain identifiable groups from juries because of their religion, sex, race or ethnic origin. Thursday’s ruling was the first clear statement by the court that Latinos are one such group and that the way they can be identified is by their last names.

That standard will help ensure that defendants get fair trials because juries will represent a cross-section of the population, the court said in an opinion by Justice Cruz Reynoso.

“Of equal import to our overall concept of justice,” barring the exclusion of people because of their heritage “serves to legitimize the judgments of the courts, promote citizen participation in government and prevent further stigmatizing of minority groups,” the court said.

By a 5-2 vote, the court reversed the murder conviction of Jeremiah Trevino because the prosecutor failed to adequately explain during jury selection why he excluded six people with Spanish surnames.

There were no Latinos on the 12-member jury that convicted Trevino, the court said, noting that Trevino was tried in Tulare County, where Spanish-surnamed people make up 30% of the population.

Trevino, sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for the 1979 murder of Rollo (Ted) Hinton, can be retried. The court said, however, that a second defendant, Leonard L. Rivas, cannot be tried again based on the constitutional prohibition against being tried twice for the same crime. The trial judge had overturned the jury’s guilty verdict against Rivas.

The court noted that Trevino and Rivas are Latino and that the victim was white, as were most of the jurors.

Reynoso cited a 40-year-old U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the exclusion of jurors based on race “is at war with our basic concepts of a democratic society.”

“Vigilant enforcement of a criminal defendant’s right to a jury drawn from a representative cross-section of the community is the single most effective weapon available in our constitutional arsenal to combat such exclusion,” Reynoso wrote.

In 1978, the California court ruled that prosecutors could not use so-called peremptory challenges to exclude members of ethnic, religious or racial groups from juries simply because of their race, religion or sex. The case that led to that decision involved the exclusion of blacks as jurors in a murder trial of two black men.

The ruling was a landmark because, previously, prosecutors could use peremptory challenges to exclude any potential juror without explaining their reasons. Several other states have since adopted California’s standard, and the issue is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

In a decision last year, three justices ruled, among other things, that Latinos constitute a specific group that, like blacks, cannot be excluded from juries. A fourth justice wrote a concurring opinion in which he made no statement on the Latino issue.

In Thursday’s case, the court removed any remaining doubt that Latinos constitute a “cognizable group” that cannot be systematically excluded.

“Hispanics often share an ethnic and cultural community of interest, including language, history, music and religion,” wrote Reynoso, the first and only Latino on the state’s high court.

”. . . On a more somber note, Hispanics, in relation to other Americans, share of host of harsh realities, such as relatively high unemployment, poverty, relative lack of educational opportunity and, of import to the present case, discrimination directed at them precisely because they are Hispanic.”

Although many lawyers had concluded that Latinos constitute a group that cannot be excluded, the problem was in finding a way to identify them.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Anthony L. Dicce had argued to the high court that determining whether a person is Latino based on whether he or she has a Spanish surname would be unworkable. He noted that not all Latinos have Spanish surnames and that members of other ethnic groups may have Spanish surnames through marriage, for example.

Deputy State Public Defender Cynthia A. Thomas said it would be “offensive” to simply ask potential jurors about their ethnic background.

‘The Least Offensive’

“Why single out Hispanics? Why not ask blacks whether they are black, or whites? In jury selection, you ask a lot of personal questions. You want to be the least offensive as possible,” Thomas said.

The court acknowledged the problem but held for the first time that “the use of Spanish surnames to exclude jurors is sufficiently indicative of a systematic effort to excuse Hispanics.

“Although the correlation between surname and group membership is not exact, such precision is unnecessary,” the court said.

Once a defense lawyer complains that a prosecutor appears to be showing a bias by removing potential jurors with Spanish surnames, the trial judge must investigate by asking the prosecutor to state the reasons for the removals, the court said.

In a partial dissent, Justice Otto Kaus said that although he agrees that Spanish-surnamed people may not be excluded, he believes that the Supreme Court should leave it to trial judges to decide whether the prosecutor has legitimate reasons for excluding people from juries.

The trial judge in Trevino’s case concluded that the prosecutor’s explanations were legitimate.

Justice Malcolm Lucas sided with Kaus but also said he disagrees with the 1978 ruling in which the court ruled that prosecutors could be required to explain why they removed certain jurors. (People vs. Trevino, Crim. 24027.)