United States Ninth Circuit

District court's denial of a defendant's motion to dismiss his indictment for being a deported alien in violation of 8 U.S.C. section 1326, claiming that the court violated the Jury Selection and Service Act (Act) and the Fifth and Sixth Amendments by using a juror source list consisting only of registered voters, is affirmed where: 1) because the juror source list did not substantially under-represent African-Americans or Hispanics in the community, the district court's failure to supplement that list did not violate the Sixth Amendment; 2) because the defendant neither alleged nor showed discriminatory intent, there was no Fifth Amendment equal-protection violation; 3) although the district clerk's office should not automatically disqualify individuals who express doubt about their English skills, and should not put off preparing statistical jury-representativeness forms required by the Act, these technical violations did not frustrate the Act's goals and do not warrant relief in this case; 4) the court's dismissal of prospective jurors based solely on a "no" answer to a question whether jurors "read, write, speak and understand the English language" was not a substantial violation of the Act because it did not interfere with the Act's key goals of randomness and objectivity; and 5) defendant did not demonstrate that the court substantially departed from the requirements of the Act by failing to return questionnaires to prospective jurors who failed to answer questions on race and/or ethnicity.

Appellate Information

• Decided 12/05/2012
• Published 12/05/2012

Judges

• Hurwitz

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel