Swain v. Alabama

The Equal Protection Clause forbids a State from deliberately denying an identifiable racial group the opportunity to participate in jury service. But a criminal defendant has no constitutional right to a jury, jury roll, or venire that contains members of his race in exact proportion to their presence in the community. The constitutional wrong is purposeful exclusion, not mere numerical disproportionality.

Black men were approximately 26% of the relevant county population, while Black citizens generally made up 10% to 15% of the jury panels. The Court regarded that disparity, standing alone, as insufficient to prove intentional discrimination. Black citizens had not been totally excluded: they appeared on most grand-jury panels, two Black grand jurors indicted Swain, and several Black citizens regularly appeared on petit-jury venires.

The jury-selection process was admittedly incomplete and haphazard. Commissioners relied on personal knowledge, directories, lists, and community contacts rather than compiling every qualified citizen. But the commissioners denied using race in their selections, and Swain offered no meaningful proof that different qualification standards had been applied to Black and white citizens or that a comparable share of Black citizens met the criteria used. An imperfect selection system, the Court held, is not itself proof of purposeful racial discrimination.

The Court treated peremptory challenges as a longstanding part of the jury-trial system. Unlike challenges for cause, peremptories are exercised without stated reasons, without judicial inquiry, and often on impressions or concerns that cannot be readily proved. Both prosecution and defense use them to help secure a jury each side believes will be impartial.

Because peremptory challenges are designed to be free from explanation and judicial scrutiny, the Court presumed that a prosecutor's strikes in an individual case were used to obtain a fair and impartial jury. Allegations that the prosecutor removed every Black veniremember, even allegations that they were removed because they were Black, did not overcome that presumption in a particular trial.

Requiring the prosecutor to justify each strike for racial neutrality would, in the Court's view, fundamentally alter the nature of the peremptory challenge. It would turn an ordinarily unreviewable discretionary strike into a decision subject to examination for sincerity and reasonableness. Therefore, Swain's motion to void the jury selected for his case was properly denied.

The Court distinguished a prosecutor's strikes in one case from a practice of striking Black veniremembers in every case, regardless of the defendant, victim, charge, or circumstances. If the prosecutor systematically removed qualified Black jurors so that none ever served, the normal presumption protecting peremptory challenges could be overcome. Such a practice would suggest that the peremptory system was being used to deny Black citizens equal access to participation in the administration of justice.

The record showed that no Black person had served on a Talladega County petit jury since about 1950, but it did not adequately show the prosecutor's responsibility for that outcome. Defense counsel also participated in Alabama's alternating-strike system, sometimes preferred all-white juries, and in some instances apparently agreed with the prosecution to remove Black veniremembers.

To establish a constitutional claim based on a systematic use of peremptories, the defendant had to show the prosecutor's repeated use of strikes against Black jurors over time. Swain produced evidence of the prosecutor's strikes in his own case but not sufficient evidence identifying when, how often, and under what circumstances prosecutors had independently struck Black jurors in prior cases. The Court therefore concluded that he had not carried his burden of proof.