Sharp Discord Marks Justices’ Rulings on Race

In decisions that touched off an unusually bitter clash among the justices over race, the state Supreme Court on Wednesday sharply limited the ability of defendants to challenge jury selection procedures in Los Angeles County as discriminatory.

The court ruled 5 to 2 that the jury panel need reflect only the racial composition of the judicial district where the case is tried. The justices rejected claims by a black defendant, accused of murdering a white victim, that he was entitled to a jury representative of the county as a whole, where blacks make up a larger portion of the population.

In a second case, the court held by the same vote that a defendant has no constitutional right to a trial in the district where the crime is committed--but may be tried anywhere in the 4,000-square-mile county if a court so orders. As a result, a defendant may stand trial in a district with a racial mix far different from the one where the crime occurred.

A similar issue involving the racial balance of Superior Court juries was raised in 1984 in the Vista Superior Court, where defense attorneys claimed juries in northern San Diego County had disproportionately fewer blacks than juries in downtown San Diego.

The attorneys argued that, while San Diego County is served by one Superior Court system, blacks comprised 1.5% of the North County population, from which juries were established to hear cases in Vista, while blacks comprise 4.5% of the population countywide.

But in 1986, the 4th District Court of Appeal held that the North County Municipal Judicial District, whose boundaries were used in pooling juries for the Vista branch of the Superior Court, comprised a community in its own right, and that the Sixth Amendment right of fair trial does not limit government’s ability to define the community from which jurors are selected.

In 1984, the appellate court criticized the North County Superior Courts headquarted in Vista for drawing on jurors living only within the 5th Supervisorial District. When judges expanded that jury pool to include all the communities within the North County Municipal Judicial District, the appellate court judges said they were satisfied.

The justices--like judges on other courts--have often voiced strong disagreements on legal issues. But Wednesday’s opinions contained surprisingly strong and personal language. The exchanges were even more unusual in that they came from a newly aligned court whose members have often publicly spoken with pride on their ability to work together in harmony.

The two decisions sparked an impassioned dissent from Justice Allen E. Broussard, the court’s only black member, who said the rulings “threaten to eviscerate” the right of defendants to a representative jury.

Broussard accused the majority of failing to show “any awareness” of the impact of these and other recent rulings on jury selection and race bias.

“None show any sensitivity for the minority defendant facing trial before a predominantly white jury,” Broussard said. “To the contrary, the decisions simply seem to assume that judges, jurors, jury commissioners and prosecutors lack any feelings of racial bias. They erect procedural barriers to make it difficult or impossible to prove subtle forms of bias.”

Justice Stanley Mosk, the other member of the court’s liberal minority, said he agreed “in principle” with Broussard’s dissent.

Justice Marcus M. Kaufman, who joined the majority in the two rulings, shot back at Broussard with a vigorous and outspoken defense of the court, denying the justices were insensitive to race and castigating Broussard for implying the court intended to limit the constitutional rights of minorities.

“His frustration may be understandable, but his attack on the motives and integrity of the other members of the court is unjustified, improvident and wholly unworthy of him,” Kaufman wrote in a separate opinion.

Kaufman said he was “pained” that Broussard apparently had abandoned the judicial tradition of avoiding personal attacks on other judges. “Forceful and reasoned dissents are, of course, valuable tools in shaping of the law,” he said. “But attacks on the purposes and assumed intent of one’s colleagues destroy the collegiality essential to the proper functioning of an appellate court. . . .”

The justice added that, in his view, any preference of one race over another--no matter how well-intentioned--would tend to perpetuate racial hostility, not end it.

The rulings were criticized by Los Angeles Deputy Public Defender Albert J. Menaster as increasing the chances that black defendants would face all-white juries. “How would a white person from the Valley feel being tried before an all-black jury in Watts?” he asked.

Menaster said the decision on trial transfers conflicted with the historic American legal tradition of trying cases in the community where a crime occurred--giving the defendant a trial by peers and the immediate community a direct role in the case. “The colonists wanted local juries,” he said. “They didn’t want to be shipped back to England for trial.”

However, Los Angeles Deputy Dist. Atty. George M. Palmer welcomed the rulings as a vindication of jury selection procedures in the county and denied they would substantially increase the likelihood of black defendants being tried by all-white juries.

“I don’t think anyone is going to be short-changed here,” Palmer said. “The prosecution is not going to make any effort to see that any particular defendant is tried by a particular jury, as far as race goes.”