USA v. Seugasala et al

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF ALASKA
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff,
v.
STUART T. SEUGASALA,
Defendant,
Case No. 3:13-cr-00092-RRB
ORDER DENYING DEFENDANT’S
MOTION TO DISMISS
I. INTRODUCTION
Before the Court, at Docket 597, is Defendant with a renewed motion to dismiss the
indictment. The United States renews its opposition at Docket 640. Defendant contends that the
indictment in this case was not returned by a Grand Jury drawn from a jury wheel that was
created from a fair cross section of the community as required by the Sixth Amendment and the
Jury Selection and Service Act of 1968.
II. BACKGROUND
The District of Alaska selects a grand jury at random pursuant to the District’s Plan for
Random Selection of Grand and Petit Jurors, adopted in accordance with the Jury Selection Act.
The Plan follows the mandate of the Act by using the registered voters list as the source of
names for potential jurors, as “the list of registered voters for the last local, state or national
election represents a fair cross-section of the community in the District of Alaska.” Every two
years the District Court obtains a list of registered voters from the State of Alaska for the most
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recent election. From that list, a pool of potential jurors is selected at random and these
individuals comprise the District’s jury wheel. Each new grand jury is selected from a smaller
group of potential jurors drawn from the jury wheel and serves for term of 18 months. Defendant
challenges the jury wheel prepared in 2011, which was the source of the grand jury that indicted
him in November 2013, as failing to represent a fair cross section of the community because of
the reliance on voter registration in the jury wheel creation.
III. STANDARD
Under the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, Defendant has a right to trial by an
impartial jury, which the Jury Selection and Service Act of 1968 clarifies must be drawn from “a
fair cross section of the community.”1 This requirement extends to both petit and grand juries.2 A
defendant may challenge whether the local jury plan substantially operates in accordance with
the Act and “may move to dismiss the indictment or stay the proceedings against him on the
ground of substantial failure to comply with the provisions of [the Act] in selecting the grand or
petit jury.”3 If the Court determines that there has been a substantial failure to comply with the
fair-cross-section requirement in selecting the grand jury, the Court may dismiss the indictment.4
1 28 U.S.C.S. §§ 1861-78; see Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 527 (1975).
2 See Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357, 359 (1979); United States v. Miller, 771 F.2d 1219
(9th Cir. 1985).
3 28 U.S.C. § 1867.
4 Id.
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IV. DISCUSSION
Three elements must be demonstrated by Defendants in order to establish a prima facie
case of a violation of the Sixth Amendment’s fair-cross-section requirement.5 A defendant must
show:
(1) that the group alleged to be excluded is a ‘distinctive’ group in the community;
(2) that the representation of this group in venires from which juries are selected is not
fair and reasonable in relation to the number of such persons in the community; and
(3) that this underrepresentation is due to systematic exclusion of the group in the jury-
selection process.
Id. The Court will address each of the three prongs of the Duren test individually below.
A. Distinctive Group
In the present case, Defendant asserts that he is Samoan and that Samoans are considered
by the United States Census Bureau as a distinct group known as Pacific Islanders.6 The Court
notes, in this regard, that Defendant was born and raised in Alaska, does not speak Samoan, has
never apparently been to Samoa, and does not readily appear to be Samoan. Defendant’s mother
attended much of the trial and appears to be Caucasian. Despite this, Defendant asserts that he
has been denied an impartial jury because the jury pool from which the grand jury that indicted
him was selected did not contain a sufficient number of Pacific Islanders. Given the facts of this
5 Duren, 439 U.S. at 364.
6 Docket 597 at 7.
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case however it is difficult to see how Defendant has been prejudiced by the jury selection
method employed by the court. Nevertheless, for purposes of this motion and giving Defendant
the benefit of the doubt, the Court will treat Defendant as Samoan.
In responding to Defendant’s motion, the United States disputes the characterization of
Pacific Islanders as a distinctive group due to a lack of support that this grouping shares
sufficient common background, interests, or beliefs to qualify themselves as a “distinctive
group” for Sixth Amendment analysis.7 While the Court acknowledges that Pacific Islanders
may be a generalized grouping of individuals with varied mother languages or family origins,
the same could be said about any racial grouping. Moreover, the fact that Pacific Islanders are
already recognized as a distinctive group in the Court’s report on the jury selection process
further supports their status as a distinctive group for the purpose of evaluating jury selection.
The Court therefore finds that Defendant meets the first prong of the Duren test because
Pacific Islanders are a distinctive group.
B. Fair and Reasonable
To establish the second prong of the Duren test, defendants must provide “proof,
typically statistical data, that the jury pool does not adequately represent [Pacific Islanders] in
relation to the number of such persons in the community.”8 Defendant argues that the
comparative disparity test should be utilized by the court to evaluate the representation, rather
7 United States v. Fletcher, 965 F.2d 781, 782 (9th Cir. 1992).
8 United States v. Esquivel, 88 F.3d 722, 726 (9th Cir. 1996).
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than the absolute disparity test.9 While the Court recognizes that precedent in this circuit no
longer mandates exclusive reliance on absolute disparity, the Court is not persuaded that the
present case warrants departure from this historical method of analysis in favor of comparative
analysis, particularly where “one problem with the comparative disparity test is that it can
overstate the underrepresentation of a group that has a small population percentage” and where
there exists no obvious indication that the current system is unfair to Defendant.10 The Court
therefore will utilize the absolute disparity test in evaluating Defendant’s challenge to the fair-
cross-section requirement.
The Court’s Jury Selection Plan Report indicates that the Pacific Islanders in the jury
wheel, as compared to other jurors who identified their group, equated to 118 of 24,030 or .5%.
The most recent Census Bureau data, according to Defendant, indicates that the Pacific Islander
population in Alaska is 1% of the entire population. This leads to an absolute disparity of just
.5%. In the past this Circuit has “declined to find underrepresentation of a distinctive group
where the absolute disparity was 7.7% or lower.”11 Given the facts and circumstances of this
case, the Court finds no reason to deviate from this precedent especially given how very low the
9 Absolute disparity eliminates the “unknowns” and only analyzes the data from those that
reported their race, while comparative disparity takes the absolute disparity figure and then divides
it by the total population.
10 United States v. Hernandez-Estrada, 749 F.3d 1154, 1161-62 (9th Cir. 2014) (en banc)
cert. denied, 135 S. Ct. 709 (2014) (“As with the absolute disparity test, no court has been able to
articulate or defend the use of a comparative disparity test on any sound statistical basis.”)
11 Hernandez-Estrada,749 F.3d 1161 quoting United States v. Rodriguez-Lara, 421 F.3d 932,
943-44 (9th Cir. 2005).
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disparity is. Therefore, Defendant has failed to demonstrate the second prong of the Duren
test because the representation of Pacific Islanders in the jury wheel was fair and
reasonable in relation to the community population.
C. Systemic Exclusion
Finally, Defendant must demonstrate that the underrepresentation is due to systemic
exclusion of Pacific Islanders in the jury-selection process. Again, Defendant has failed to do so.
Defendant presents absolutely no evidence of systematic exclusion of Pacific Islanders.
Defendant speculates however that Pacific Islanders are less likely to register as voters because
of their poverty and/or mobility and references raw statistical data from the 1980s that suggests
that these factors can have a negative impact on voter registration. There is no empirical
evidence however that Pacific Islanders, who have become United States citizens, register to
vote at a lower rate than the general population nor is there empirical evidence that their alleged
poverty and mobility leads to reduced voter registration. This is purely conjecture.
Furthermore, Defendant has failed to overcome the “high hurdle” necessary to
demonstrate that other methods of juror selection, in addition to voter registration, would
substantially increase the representation of Pacific Islanders in the jury pool. Defendant has not
therefore made a prima facie showing that Pacific Islanders were systematically excluded from
the grand jury pool which indicted him.12
12 Id. at 1166 n.8.
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For these reasons, Defendant has failed to establish the third prong of the Duren test
because there is an insufficient showing that any underrepresentation is the result of a
systemic exclusion of Pacific Islanders in the jury-selection process.
V. CONCLUSION
For the reasons outlined above and the reasons set forth by the United States in its
opposition, Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss is hereby DENIED.
IT IS SO ORDERED this 20th day of April, 2015.
S/RALPH R. BEISTLINE
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
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