Berghuis v. Smith
Issues
Whether the Sixth Circuit erred in holding that the Michigan Supreme Court failed to apply clearly established Supreme Court precedent for evaluating whether the jury was comprised of a fair cross-section of the community, and whether the Sixth Circuit erred in adopting the comparative-disparity test for evaluating the difference between the number of African Americans in the community as compared to the venires.
In 1993, an all-white jury convicted Diapolis Smith of second-degree murder and possession of a firearm during a felony. A 1990 Census showed that African-Americans comprised 7.8% of eligible jurors in the relevant county and 18.1% of eligible jurors in the relevant city. Smith challenged the county's system of jury selection, arguing it violated his Sixth Amendment right to a jury drawn from a fair-cross-section of the community. The Sixth Circuit ruled in his favor, rejecting Petitioner Mary Berghuis’ proposed “absolute-disparity test,” which subtracts the percentage of adult members of a distinct group in the venire from the percentage of eligible jurors of that distinct group in the population. It instead applied the “comparative-disparity test,” which divides the absolute-disparity by the percentage of the distinct group in the community. The Supreme Court’s decision may impact the composition of juries.
Questions as Framed for the Court by the Parties
In Duren v. Missouri, this Court established a three-prong standard for determining whether a defendant was able to demonstrate a prima facie violation of the Sixth Amendment right to have a jury drawn from a fair cross section of the community. The circuits have split on the issue about the proper test for determining what constitutes a fair and reasonable representation of a distinct group from the community within the venires (jury pool) under the second prong of Duren. The Michigan Supreme Court ultimately concluded that the small disparities at issue here for African Americans (7.28% in the community as against 6% in the venires during the time period measured) did not give rise to a constitutional violation. The question presented is:
Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit erred in concluding that the Michigan Supreme Court failed to apply "clearly established" Supreme Court precedent under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 on the issue of the fair cross-section requirement under Duren where the Sixth Circuit adopted the comparative-disparity test (for evaluating the difference between the numbers of African Americans in the community as compared to the venires), which this Court has never applied and which four circuits have specifically rejected.
On February 12, 1992, Michigan police arrested Diapolis Smith (“Smith”), an African-American man, in relation to a shooting death at a nightclub in Grand Rapids, Michigan. See Smith v. Berghuis, 543 F.3d 326, 329–330 (2008). Smith’s case proceeded to jury trial in Kent County Circuit Court. See
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Additional Resources
- Annotated U.S. Constitution: Sixth Amendment (Right to Trial by Impartial Jury)
- Wex: Law about Habeas Corpus
- ABC News: Court to Settle Dispute Over All-White Jury