Background of the case
Gene Ham was a black man who was arrested on May 15, 1970, in Florence, South Carolina, due to four outstanding warrants that charged him with possession of drugs. After his arrest, police took Ham to the Florence city jail and searched him. This search produced marijuana, but Ham claimed that police had framed him because of his involvement with the civil rights movement. Nonetheless, Ham was subsequently charged with a fifth arrest warrant. Before Ham's trial, during voir dire, Ham sought to ask the following four sets of questions of the potential jurors:
Florence is a city in, and the county seat of, Florence County, South Carolina, United States. It is probably best known for being the intersection of I-95 and I-20, and the eastern terminus of I-20. It is the county seat of Florence County and the primary city within the Florence metropolitan area. The area forms the core of the historical "Pee Dee" region of South Carolina, which includes the eight counties of northeastern South Carolina, along with sections of southeastern North Carolina. As of the 2010 census, the population of Florence was 37,056, and the estimated population in 2015 was 38,228.
The civil rights movement in the United States was a decades-long struggle with the goal of enforcing constitutional and legal rights for African Americans that other Americans already enjoyed. With roots that dated back to the Reconstruction era during the late 19th century, the movement achieved its largest legislative gains in the mid-1960s, after years of direct actions and grassroots protests that were organized from the mid-1950s until 1968. Encompassing strategies, various groups, and organized social movements to accomplish the goals of ending legalized racial segregation, disenfranchisement, and discrimination in the United States, the movement, using major nonviolent campaigns, eventually secured new recognition in federal law and federal protection for all Americans.
- Would you fairly try this case on the basis of the evidence and disregarding the defendant’s race?
- You have no prejudice against negroes? Against black people? You would not be influenced by the use of the term ’black’?
- Would you disregard the fact that this defendant wears a beard in deciding this case?
- Did you watch the television show about the local drug problem a few days ago when a local policeman appeared for a long time? Have you heard about that show? Have you read or heard about recent newspaper articles to the effect that the local drug problem is bad? Would you try this case solely on the basis of the evidence presented in this courtroom? Would you be influenced by the circumstances that the prosecution’s witness, a police officer, has publicly spoken on TV about drugs?
The trial judge refused to ask these questions, ruling that they were not relevant. Instead, the judge asked the jurors only the following three basic questions specifically required by South Carolina State Law, S.C. Code § 38-202 (1962):
- Have you formed or expressed any opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant, Gene Ham?
- Are you conscious of any bias or prejudice for or against him?
- Can you give the State and the defendant a fair and impartial trial?
At the conclusion of his trial, Ham was found guilty of possession of marijuana, which was a violation of South Carolina State Law, S. C. Code § 32-1506 (1962). Ham was sentenced to eighteen months in prison.
Ham appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court of South Carolina in State v. Ham, 256 S.C. 1 (1971). One of the twelve issues that Ham raised on appeal was that the trial judge erred by refusing to ask Ham’s proposed voir dire questions. The South Carolina Supreme Court determined that the three basic questions asked were in compliance with South Carolina state law, S.C. § 38-202 (1962) at the time. The court stated that Ham failed to carry his burden of showing that other questions should have been asked to assure a fair and impartial jury. The court also found that there was no abuse of discretion by the trial judge. Ham then petitioned the United States Supreme Court to review of the decision of the South Carolina Supreme Court, and the United States Supreme Court, 404 U.S. 1057, 92 S. Ct. 744, 30 L. Ed. 2d 745 (1972), granted certiorari.
Majority opinion
Writing for the majority, Justice William Rehnquist first addressed the South Carolina Supreme Court's dissent that concluded that Ham should have been allowed to question the jury based on precedent set forth in Aldridge v. United States, 283 U.S. 308 (1931). The Court agreed that Aldridge stood for the proposition that trial judges must allow interrogation of veniremen with respect to racial prejudice because of “essential demands of fairness." [1] The majority, however, found that Aldridge lacked any constitutional grounding. As such, the Court conducted an analysis under the Fourteenth Amendment. According to the Court, the principal purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to prohibit the States from invidiously discriminating on the basis of race. This purpose, combined with the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause, properly ensures the “essential demands of fairness.” [1]
The South Carolina Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The court is composed of a Chief Justice and four Associate Justices.
The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution each contain a due process clause. Due process deals with the administration of justice and thus the due process clause acts as a safeguard from arbitrary denial of life, liberty, or property by the government outside the sanction of law. The Supreme Court of the United States interprets the clauses more broadly, concluding that these clauses provide four protections: procedural due process, substantive due process, a prohibition against vague laws, and as the vehicle for the incorporation of the Bill of Rights.
Turning to the particulars of Ham's case, the Court noted that voir dire, although subject to the Fourteenth Amendment, is governed by the discretion of the trial court. As such, the trial judge was not required to put the question of racial bias in any particular form or to ask potential jurors any number of questions. For example, the Court addressed the jury instruction concerning beards and determined that such a question was well within the trial court's discretion to allow or disallow. However, given the context of the case, the Court found that the questions regarding racial prejudice were appropriate and necessary. [1]
Concurrence and dissent
Justice William Douglas concurred that the trial judge was constitutionally required to ask about the racial prejudice among the jurors. However, Justice Douglas believed that the trial judge abused his discretion by not allowing the petitioner to ask potential jurors about their prejudice to hair growth. Justice Douglas stated that denying the petitioner the ability to make such an inquiry precluded a trial by a neutral and impartial jury and thereby constituted reversible error. He cited two analogous cases where such reversal was warranted; in Morford v. United States, 339 U.S. 258 (1950), and Dennis v. United States, 339 U.S. 162 (1950), the petitioners were held to have the right question juries about their potential ties to the Communist Party and the trial court's failure to permit such questions constituted reversible error.
Justice Douglas also referenced Aldridge and concluded that the goal of voir dire was to disclose “prejudices of a serious character”. [1] He then associated hair growth with prejudice of a serious character. He points out that “hair growth is symbolic to many of rebellion against traditional society and disapproval of the way the current power structure handles social problems,” and he further acknowledged that for some “people, nonconventional hair growth symbolizes an undesirable lifestyle characterized by unreliability, dishonesty, lack of moral values, communal (communist) tendencies, and the assumption of drug use.” [1] Douglas concluded that denying a petitioner the right to examine this aspect of prejudice was to also deny him an effective means of voir dire.
Justice Thurgood Marshall concurred that the trial court was constitutionally required to ask about a potential juror's racial prejudice. He further agreed, based on the record, that questions regarding pre-trial publicity were not required. However, he dissented against barring other avenues of inquiry against possible prejudice that are reasonable and relevant. He reasoned that a right to an impartial jury has been fundamental to the American system of justice all the way back to the founding of the United States. [2] This right to impartiality and fairness, he reasoned, was never meant to be limited to certain classes of prejudice, and a juror should avoid prejudging a party based on any factor that is detrimental to that party's position. [1] According to Justice Marshall, this right to an impartial jury carries with it a right to take reasonable steps to ensure that the jury is indeed unprejudiced. The most important of these is the jury challenge. Here Justice Marshall looked to Pointer v. United States, 151 U.S. 396 (1894), where a unanimous Court thought that the right to challenge was "one of the most important of the rights secured to the accused" and that "any system for the empanelling of a jury that [prevents] or embarrasses the full, unrestricted exercise by the accused of that right, must be condemned."
Justice Marshall took care to caution that a party should not be allowed to ask any and every possible question. Nor should a party be given an unlimited opportunity to conduct preliminary voir dire. He recognized the countervailing interests of the state with regard to speedy trials and the avoidance of jury intimidation. Nonetheless, in Justice Marshall’s opinion, the additional fifteen minutes needed to ask the petitioner's questions concerning racial bias would not have greatly burdened the trial court, and thus the trial court abused its discretion. [1]
A jury trial, or trial by jury, is a lawful proceeding in which a jury makes a decision or findings of fact. It is distinguished from a bench trial in which a judge or panel of judges makes all decisions.
The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution sets forth rights related to criminal prosecutions. It was ratified in 1791 as part of the United States Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court has applied most of the protections of this amendment to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
A jury is a sworn body of people convened to render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Modern juries tend to be found in courts to ascertain the guilt or lack thereof in a crime. In Anglophone jurisdictions, the verdict may be guilty or not guilty. The old institution of grand juries still exists in some places, particularly the United States, to investigate whether enough evidence of a crime exists to bring someone to trial.
Jury nullification is a concept where members of a trial jury find a defendant not guilty if they do not support a government's law, do not believe it is constitutional or humane, or do not support a possible punishment for breaking the law. This may happen in both civil and criminal trials. In a criminal trial, a jury nullifies by acquitting a defendant, even though the members of the jury may believe that the defendant did commit the alleged crime. This may occur when members of the jury disagree with the law the defendant has been charged with breaking, or believe that the law should not be applied in that particular case. A jury can similarly convict a defendant on the ground of disagreement with an existing law, even if no law is broken.
Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that a prosecutor's use of peremptory challenge in a criminal case—the dismissal of jurors without stating a valid cause for doing so—may not be used to exclude jurors based solely on their race. The Court ruled that this practice violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The case gave rise to the term Batson challenge, an objection to a peremptory challenge based on the standard established by the Supreme Court's decision in this case. Subsequent jurisprudence has resulted in the extension of Batson to civil cases and cases where jurors are excluded on the basis of sex.
Jury selection is the selection of the people who will serve on a jury during a jury trial. The group of potential jurors is first selected from among the community using a reasonably random method. Jury lists are compiled from voter registrations and driver license or ID renewals. From those lists, summons are mailed. A panel of jurors is then assigned to a courtroom. The prospective jurors are randomly selected to sit in the jury box. At this stage they will be questioned in court by the judge and/or attorneys in the United States. Depending on the jurisdiction, attorneys may have an opportunity to mount a challenge for cause argument or use one of a limited number of peremptory challenges. In some jurisdictions that have capital punishment, the jury must be death-qualified to remove those who are opposed to the death penalty. Jury selection and techniques for voir dire are taught to law students in trial advocacy courses. However, attorneys sometimes use expert assistance in systematically choosing the jury, although other uses of jury research are becoming more common. The jury selected is said to have been "empaneled".
Williams v. Price, 343 F.3d 223, was a 2003 legal case decided in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The appellant was Ronald A. Williams, an African American prisoner; the suit was brought against James Price, the prison superintendent of State Correctional Institution – Pittsburgh, and D. Michael Fisher, the then-Attorney General of Pennsylvania.
Peretz v. United States, 501 U.S. 923 (1991), was a Supreme Court of the United States case. The Court affirmed that a defendant in a federal criminal trial on a felony charge must affirmatively object to the supervising of jury selection by a magistrate judge, ruling that it is not enough that the defendant merely acquiesce to the magistrate's involvement in his case for a court to reverse a conviction for this reason.
Rice v. Collins, 546 U.S. 333 (2006), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States regarding a prosecutor's use of a peremptory challenge to remove a young African American woman, Juror 16, from a defendant's drug trial jury in a California court case, based on her youth and on her alleged "eye rolling" in answer to a question. The defendant, Steven Martell Collins, challenged the striking of Juror 16, saying her exclusion was based on race, but the trial judge agreed that the prosecutor's reasons were race-neutral. The California Court of Appeal upheld the trial court's ruling, and the Federal District Court dismissed Collins' habeas corpus petition with prejudice. However, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and remanded, stating that the dismissal was unreasonable based, among other reasons, on the lack of evidence that the eye rolling had occurred.
Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U.S. 404 (1972), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that state juries may convict a defendant by a less-than-unanimous verdict in a felony criminal case. The four-justice plurality opinion of the court, written by Justice White, affirmed the judgment of the Oregon Court of Appeals, and held that there was no constitutional right to a unanimous verdict. Although federal law requires federal juries to reach criminal verdicts unanimously, the Court held Oregon's practice did not violate the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury and so allowed it to continue. In Johnson v. Louisiana, a case decided on the same day, the Court held that Louisiana's similar practice of allowing criminal convictions by a jury vote of 9-3 did not violate due process or equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Jury nullification in the United States has its origins in colonial America under British law. In the United States, jury nullification occurs when a jury in a criminal case reaches a verdict contrary to the weight of evidence, sometimes because of a disagreement with the relevant law. The American jury draws its power of nullification from its right to render a general verdict in criminal trials, the inability of criminal courts to direct a verdict no matter how strong the evidence, the Fifth Amendment's Double Jeopardy Clause, which prohibits the appeal of an acquittal, and the fact that jurors can never be punished for the verdict they return.
Irvin v. Dowd, 359 U.S. 394 (1959), was a United States Supreme Court case. It involved an escaped convict's denial of appeal. The convict sought a federal writ of habeas corpus.
Strike for cause is a method of eliminating potential members from a jury panel in the United States.
Rivera v. Illinois, 556 U.S. 148 (2009), is a decision by the United States Supreme Court involving whether the rejection of a defendant's peremptory challenge to a juror constituted harmless error.
Snyder v. Louisiana, 552 U.S. 472 (2008), was a United States Supreme Court case about racial issues in jury selection in death penalty cases. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the 7–2 majority, ruled that the prosecutor's use of peremptory strikes to remove African American jurors violated the Court's earlier holding in Batson v. Kentucky. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented.
The most outstanding feature in the United States is that verdicts in criminal cases must almost always be unanimous.
Jury selection in the United States is the choosing of members of grand juries and petit juries for the purpose of conducting trial by jury in the United States.
Deck v. Missouri, 544 U.S. 622 (2005), was a United States Supreme Court case that dealt with the constitutionality of shackling a prisoner during the sentencing phase of a trial. In a 7–2 opinion delivered by Justice Breyer, the court held that is against due process, a right prescribed by the 5th and 14th Amendments, to shackle a defendant in the sentencing portion of a trial unless the shackling relates to a specific defendant and certain state interests.
Wainwright vs. Witt, 470 U.S. 1039 (1985), was a U.S. Supreme Court case concerning a criminal defendant, Johnny Paul Witt, who argued that his Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated when he was sentenced to death for first degree murder by the state of Florida. He argued that the trial court had unconstitutionally hand-picked a jury during the voir dire process. This was because certain people were excused from the jury because they admitted pre-trial, that their decision of guilty or not guilty toward capital punishment would be swayed due to personal or religious beliefs.
