U.S. Supreme Court Taylor v. Louisiana, 419
U.S. 522 (1975) Taylor v. Louisiana No. 73-5744 Argued October 16,
1974 Decided January 21,
1975 419
U.S. 522 APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF
LOUISIANA Syllabus Appellant, a male, was convicted of a crime by a petit jury
selected from a venire on which there were no women and which was
selected pursuant to a system resulting from Louisiana
constitutional and statutory requirements that a woman should not
be selected for jury service unless she had previously filed a
written declaration of her desire to be subject to jury service.
The State Supreme Court affirmed, having rejected appellant's
challenge to the constitutionality of the state jury selection
scheme. Held: 1. Appellant had standing to make his constitutional claim,
there being no rule that such a claim may be asserted only by
defendants who are members of the group excluded from jury service. Peters v. Kiff, 407 U. S. 493 . P. 419 U. S.
526 .

															2. The requirement that a petit jury be selected from a
representative cross-section of the community, which is fundamental
to the jury trial guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment, is violated by
the systematic exclusion of women from jury panels, which in the
judicial district here involved amounted to 53% of the citizens
eligible for jury service. Pp. 419 U. S.
526 -533.

															3. No adequate justification was shown here for the challenged
jury selection provisions and the right to a jury selected from a
fair cross-section of the community cannot be overcome on merely
rational grounds. Pp. 419 U. S.
533 -535.

															4. It can no longer be held that women as a class may be
excluded from jury service or given automatic exemptions based
solely on sex if the consequence is that criminal jury venires are
almost all male, and contrary implications of prior cases, e.g., Hoyt v. Florida, 368 U. S. 57 ,
cannot be followed. Pp. 419 U. S.
535 -537. 282 So.
2d 491 , reversed and remanded.

															WHITE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which DOUGLAS,
BRENNAN, STEWART, MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, and POWELL, JJ., joined.
BURGER, C.J., concurred in the result. REHNQUIST, J., filed a
dissenting opinion, post, p. 419 U. S.
538 . Page 419 U. S. 523 MR. JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.

															When this case was tried, Art. VII, § 41, [ Footnote 1 ] of the Louisiana Constitution, and
Art. 402 of the Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure [ Footnote 2 ] provided that a woman should not
be selected for jury service unless she had previously filed a
written declaration of her desire to be subject to jury service.
The constitutionality of these provisions is the issue in this
case. Page 419 U. S. 524 I Appellant, Billy J. Taylor, was indicted by the grand jury of
St. Tammany Parish, in the Twenty-second Judicial District of
Louisiana, for aggravated kidnaping. On April 12, 1972, appellant
moved the trial court to quash the petit jury venire drawn for the
special criminal term beginning with his trial the following day.
Appellant alleged that women were systematically excluded from the
venire and that he would therefore be deprived of what he claimed
to be his federal constitutional right to "a fair trial by jury of
a representative segment of the community. . . ."

															The Twenty-second Judicial District comprises the parishes of
St. Tammany and Washington. The appellee has stipulated that 53% of
the persons eligible for jury service in these parishes were
female, and that no more than 10% of the persons on the jury wheel
in St. Tammany Parish were women. [ Footnote 3 ] During the period from December 8, 1971, to
November 3, 19,72, 12 females were among the 1,800 persons drawn to
fill petit jury venires in St. Tammany Parish. It was also
stipulated that the discrepancy between females eligible for jury
service and those actually included in the venire was the result of
the operation of La.Const., Art. VII, § 41, and La.Code Crim.Proc.,
Art. 402. [ Footnote 4 ] In the
present case, a venire totaling 175 persons was drawn for jury
service beginning April 13, 1972. There were no females on the
venire.

															Appellant's motion to quash the venire was denied that same day.
After being tried, convicted, and sentenced to death, appellant
sought review in the Supreme Court of Louisiana, where he renewed
his claim that the Page 419 U. S. 525 petit jury venire should have been quashed. The Supreme Court of
Louisiana, recognizing that this claim drew into question the
constitutionality of the provisions of the Louisiana Constitution
and Code of Criminal Procedure dealing with the service of women on
juries, squarely held, one justice dissenting, that these
provisions were valid and not unconstitutional under federal law. 282 So.
2d 491 , 497 (1973). [ Footnote
5 ]

															Appellant appealed from that decision to this Court. We noted
probable jurisdiction, 415 U.S. 911 (1974), to consider whether the
Louisiana jury selection system deprived appellant of his Sixth and
Fourteenth Amendment right to an impartial jury trial. We hold that
it did, and that these Amendments were violated in this case by the
operation of La.Const., Art. VII, § 41, and La.Code Crim.Proc.,
Art. 402. In consequence, appellant's conviction must be
reversed. II The Louisiana jury selection system does not disqualify women
from jury service, but, in operation, its conceded systematic
impact is that only a very few women, grossly disproportionate to
the number of eligible women in the community, are called for jury
service. In this case, no women were on the venire from which the
petit jury was drawn. The issue we have, therefore, is whether a
jury selection system which operates to exclude from jury service
an identifiable class of citizens constituting 53% Page 419 U. S. 526 of eligible jurors in the community comports with the Sixth and
Fourteenth Amendments.

															The State first insists that Taylor, a male, has no standing to
object to the exclusion of women from his jury. But Taylor's claim
is that he was constitutionally entitled to a jury drawn from a
venire constituting a fair cross-section of the community, and that
the jury that tried him was not such a jury by reason of the
exclusion of women. Taylor was not a member of the excluded class,
but there is no rule that claims such as Taylor presents may be
made only by those defendants who are members of the group excluded
from jury service. In Peters v. Kiff, 407 U.
S. 493 (1972), the defendant, a white man, challenged
his conviction on the ground that Negroes had been systematically
excluded from jury service. Six Members of the Court agreed that
petitioner was entitled to present the issue, and concluded that he
had been deprived of his federal rights. Taylor, in the case before
us, was similarly entitled to tender and have adjudicated the claim
that the exclusion of women from jury service deprived him of the
kind of factfinder to which he was constitutionally entitled. III The background against which this case must be decided includes
our holding in Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.
S. 145 (1968), that the Sixth Amendment's provision for
jury trial is made binding on the States by virtue of the
Fourteenth Amendment. Our inquiry is whether the presence of a fair
cross-section of the community on venires, panels, or lists from
which petit juries are drawn is essential to the fulfillment of the
Sixth Amendment's guarantee of an impartial jury trial in criminal
prosecutions.

															The Court's prior cases are instructive. Both in the Page 419 U. S. 527 course of exercising its supervisory powers over trials in
federal courts and in the constitutional context, the Court has
unambiguously declared that the American concept of the jury trial
contemplates a jury drawn from a fair cross-section of the
community. A unanimous Court stated in Smith v. Texas, 311 U. S. 128 , 311 U. S. 130 (1940), that

															"[i]t is part of the established tradition in the use of juries
as instruments of public justice that the jury be a body truly
representative of the community."

															To exclude racial groups from jury service was said to be "at
war with our basic concepts of a democratic society and a
representative government." A state jury system that resulted in
systematic exclusion of Negroes as jurors was therefore held to
violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Glasser v. United States, 315 U. S.
60 , 315 U. S. 85 -86
(1942), in the context of a federal criminal case and the Sixth
Amendment's jury trial requirement, stated that

															"[o]ur notions of what a proper jury is have developed in
harmony with our basic concepts of a democratic society and a
representative government,"

															and repeated the Court's understanding that the jury " be a
body truly representative of the community' . . . , and not the
organ of any special group or class." A federal conviction by a jury from which women had been
excluded, although eligible for service under state law, was
reviewed in Ballard v. United States, 329 U.
S. 187 (1946). Noting the federal statutory "design to
make the jury a cross-section of the community'" and the fact
that women had been excluded, the Court exercised its supervisory
powers over the federal courts and reversed the conviction. In Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443 , 344 U. S. 474 (1953), the Court declared that "[o]ur duty to protect he federal constitutional rights of all
does not mean we must or should impose on states our conception of
the proper source of jury lists, so long as the source Page 419 U. S. 528 reasonably reflects a cross-section of the population suitable
in character and intelligence for that civic duty."

															Some years later, in Carter v. Jury Comm'n, 396 U. S. 320 , 396 U. S. 330 (1970), the Court observed that the exclusion of Negroes from jury
service because of their race "contravenes the very idea of a jury
-- a body truly representative of the community.' . . ."
(Quoting from Smith v. Texas, supra. ) At about the same
time, it was contended that the use of six-man juries in noncapital
criminal cases violated the Sixth Amendment for failure to provide
juries drawn from a cross-section of the community, Williams v.
Florida, 399 U. S. 78 (1970). In the course of rejecting that challenge, we said that the
number of persons on the jury should "be large enough to promote group deliberation, free from
outside attempts at intimidation, and to provide a fair possibility
for obtaining a representative cross-section of the community." Id. at 399 U. S. 100 .
In like vein, in Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U.
S. 404 , 406 U. S.
410 -411 (1972) (plurality opinion), it was said that

															"a jury will come to such a [common sense] judgment as long as
it consists of a group of laymen representative of a cross-section
of the community who have the duty and the opportunity to
deliberate . . . on the question of a defendant's guilt."

															Similarly, three Justices in Peters v. Kiff, 407 U.S.
at 407 U. S. 500 ,
observed that the Sixth Amendment comprehended a fair possibility
for obtaining a jury constituting a representative cross-section of
the community.

															The unmistakable import of this Court's opinions, at least since
1940, Smith v. Texas, supra, and not repudiated by
intervening decisions, is that the selection of a petit jury from a
representative cross-section of the community is an essential
component of the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial. Recent
federal legislation governing jury selection within the federal
court system has a similar thrust. Shortly prior to this Court's
decision Page 419 U. S. 529 in Duncan v. Louisiana, supra, the Federal Jury
Selection and Service Act of 1968 [ Footnote 6 ] was enacted. In that Act, Congress stated

															"the policy of the United States that all litigants in Federal
courts entitled to trial by jury shall have the right to grand and
petit juries selected at random from a fair cross-section of the
community in the district or division wherein the court
convenes."

															28 U.S.C. § 1861. In that Act, Congress also established the
machinery by which the stated policy was to be implemented. 28
U.S.C. §§ 1862-1866. In passing this legislation, the Committee
Reports of both the House [ Footnote
7 ] and the Senate [ Footnote
8 ] recognized that the jury plays a political function in the
administration of the law, and Page 419 U. S. 530 that the requirement of a jury's being chosen from a fair
cross-section of the community is fundamental to the American
system of justice. Debate on the floors of the House and Senate on
the Act invoked the Sixth Amendment, [ Footnote 9 ] the Constitution generally, [ Footnote 10 ] and prior decisions of this
Court [ Footnote 11 ] in
support of the Act.

															We accept the fair cross-section requirement as fundamental to
the jury trial guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment, and are convinced
that the requirement has solid foundation. The purpose of a jury is
to guard against the exercise of arbitrary power -- to make
available the common sense judgment of the community as a hedge
against the overzealous or mistaken prosecutor and in preference to
the professional, or perhaps overconditioned or biased response of
a judge. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. at 391 U. S.
155 -156. This prophylactic vehicle is not provided if
the jury pool is made up of only special segments of the populace
or if large, distinctive groups are excluded from the pool.
Community participation in the administration of the criminal law,
moreover, is not only consistent with our democratic heritage, but
is also critical to public confidence in the fairness of the
criminal justice system. Restricting jury service to only special
groups or excluding identifiable segments playing major roles in
the community cannot be squared with the constitutional concept of
jury trial.

															"Trial by jury presupposes a jury drawn from a pool broadly
representative of the community as well as impartial in a specific
case. . . . [T]he broad representative character of the jury should
be maintained, partly as assurance of a diffused impartiality and
partly Page 419 U. S. 531 because sharing in the administration of justice is a phase of
civic responsibility." Thiel v. Southern Pacific Co., 328 U.
S. 217 , 328 U. S. 227 (1946) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). IV We are also persuaded that the fair cross-section requirement is
violated by the systematic exclusion of women, who, in the judicial
district involved here, amounted to 53% of the citizens eligible
for jury service. This conclusion necessarily entails the judgment
that women are sufficiently numerous and distinct from men, and
that, if they are systematically eliminated from jury panels, the
Sixth Amendment's fair cross-section requirement cannot be
satisfied. This very matter was debated in Ballard v. United
States, supra. Positing the fair cross-section rule -- there
said to be a statutory one -- the Court concluded that the
systematic exclusion of women was unacceptable. The dissenting view
that an all-male panel drawn from various groups in the community
would be as truly representative as if women were included, was
firmly rejected:

															"The thought is that the factors which tend to influence the
action of women are the same as those which influence the action of
men -- personality, background, economic status -- and not sex. Yet
it is not enough to say that women when sitting as jurors neither
act nor tend to act as a class. Men likewise do not act as a class.
But, if the shoe were on the other foot, who would claim that a
jury was truly representative of the community if all men were
intentionally and systematically excluded from the panel? The truth
is that the two sexes are not fungible; a community made up
exclusively of one is different from a community composed of both;
the subtle interplay of influence one on the other is Page 419 U. S. 532 among the imponderables. To insulate the courtroom from either
may not, in a given case, make an iota of difference. Yet a flavor,
a distinct quality, is lost if either sex is excluded. The
exclusion of one may indeed make the jury less representative of
the community than would be true if an economic or racial group
were excluded."

															329 U.S. at 329 U. S.
193 -194. [ Footnote
12 ] Page 419 U. S. 533 In this respect, we agree with the Court in Ballard: If
the fair cross-section rule is to govern the selection of juries,
as we have concluded it must, women cannot be systematically
excluded from jury panels from which petit juries are drawn. This
conclusion is consistent with the current judgment of the country,
now evidenced by legislative or constitutional provisions in every
State and at the federal level qualifying women for jury service.
[ Footnote 13 ] V There remains the argument that women as a class serve a
distinctive role in society and that jury service would so
substantially interfere with that function that the State has ample
justification for excluding women from service unless they
volunteer, even though the result is that almost all jurors are
men. It is true that Hoyt v. Florida, 368 U. S.
57 (1961), held that such a system [ Footnote 14 ] did not deny due process of law or
equal protection Page 419 U. S. 534 of the laws because there was a sufficiently rational basis for
such an exemption. [ Footnote
15 ] But Hoyt did not involve a defendant's Sixth
Amendment right to a jury drawn from a fair cross-section of the
community and the prospect of depriving him of that right if women
as a class are systematically excluded. The right to a proper jury
cannot be overcome on merely rational grounds. [ Footnote 16 ] There must be weightier
reasons if a distinctive class representing 53% of the eligible
jurors is for all practical purposes to be excluded from jury
service. No such basis has been tendered here.

															The States are free to grant exemptions from jury service to
individuals in case of special hardship or incapacity and to those
engaged in particular occupations the uninterrupted performance of
which is critical to the community's welfare. Rawlins v.
Georgia, 201 U. S. 638 (1906). It would not appear that such exemptions would pose
substantial threats that the remaining pool of jurors would not be
representative of the community. A system excluding all women,
however, is a wholly different matter. It is untenable to suggest
these days that it would be a special hardship for each and every
woman to perform jury service or that society cannot Page 419 U. S. 535 spare any women from their present duties. [ Footnote 17 ] This may be the case
with many, and it may be burdensome to sort out those who should be
exempted from those who should serve. But that task is performed in
the case of men, and the administrative convenience in dealing with
women as a class is insufficient justification for diluting the
quality of community judgment represented by the jury in criminal
trials. VI Although this judgment may appear a foregone conclusion from the
pattern of some of the Court's cases over the past 30 years, as
well as from legislative developments at both federal and state
levels, it is nevertheless true that, until today, no case had
squarely held that the exclusion of women from jury venires
deprives a criminal Page 419 U. S. 536 defendant of his Sixth Amendment right to trial by an impartial
jury drawn from a fair cross-section of the community. It is
apparent that the first Congress did not perceive the Sixth
Amendment as requiring women on criminal jury panels, for the
direction of the First Judiciary Act of 1789 was that federal
jurors were to have the qualifications required by the States in
which the federal court was sitting, [ Footnote 18 ] and, at the time, women were disqualified
under state law in every State. Necessarily, then, federal juries
in criminal cases were all male, and it was not until the Civil
Rights Act of 197, 71 Stat. 638, 28 U.S.C. § 1861 (1964 ed.), that
Congress itself provided that all citizens, with limited
exceptions, were competent to sit on federal juries. Until that
time, federal courts were required by statute to exclude women from
jury duty in those States where women were disqualified. Utah was
the first State to qualify women for juries; it did so in 1898, n 13, supra. Moreover, Hoyt v. Florida was decided and has stood for
the proposition that, even if women as a group could not be
constitutionally disqualified from jury service, there was ample
reason to treat all women differently from men for the purpose of
jury service and to exclude them unless they volunteered. [ Footnote 19 ] Page 419 U. S. 537 Accepting as we do, however, the view that the Sixth Amendment
affords the defendant in a criminal trial the opportunity to have
the jury drawn from venires representative of the community, we
think it is no longer tenable to hold that women as a class may be
excluded or given automatic exemptions based solely on sex if the
consequence is that criminal jury venires are almost totally male.
To this extent we cannot follow the contrary implications of the
prior cases, including Hoyt v. Florida. If it was ever the
case that women were unqualified to sit on juries or were so
situated that none of them should be required to perform jury
service, that time has long since passed. If at one time it could
be held that Sixth Amendment juries must be drawn from a fair
cross-section of the community but that this requirement permitted
the almost total exclusion of women, this is not the case today.
Communities differ at different times and places. What is a fair
cross-section at one time or place is not necessarily a fair
cross-section at another time or a different place. Nothing
persuasive has been presented to us in this case suggesting that
all-male venires in the parishes involved here are fairly
representative of the local population otherwise eligible for jury
service. VII Our holding does not augur or authorize the fashioning of
detailed jury selection codes by federal courts. The Page 419 U. S. 538 fair cross-section principle must have much leeway in
application. The States remain free to prescribe relevant
qualifications for their jurors and to provide reasonable
exemptions so long as it may be fairly said that the jury lists or
panels are representative of the community. Carter v. Jury
Comm'n, supra, as did Brown v. Allen, supra; Rawlins v.
Georgia, supra, and other cases, recognized broad discretion
in the States in this respect. We do not depart from the principles
enunciated in Carter. But, as we have said, Louisiana's
special exemption for women operates to exclude them from petit
juries, which, in our view, is contrary to the command of the Sixth
and Fourteenth Amendments.

															It should also be emphasized that, in holding that petit juries
must be drawn from a source fairly representative of the community,
we impose no requirement that petit juries actually chosen must
mirror the community and reflect the various distinctive groups in
the population. Defendants are not entitled to a jury of any
particular composition, Fay v. New York, 332 U.
S. 261 , 332 U. S. 284 (1947); Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U.S. at 406 U. S. 413 (plurality opinion); but the jury wheels, pools of names, panels,
or venires from which juries are drawn must not systematically
exclude distinctive groups in the community, and thereby fail to be
reasonably representative thereof.

															The judgment of the Louisiana Supreme Court is reversed, and the
case remanded to that court for further proceedings not
inconsistent with this opinion. So ordered. MR. CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER concurs in the result.

															[ Footnote 1 ]

															La.Const., Art. VII, § 41, read, in pertinent part:

															"The Legislature shall provide for the election and drawing of
competent and intelligent jurors for the trial of civil and
criminal cases; provided, however, that no woman shall be drawn for
jury service unless she shall have previously filed with the clerk
of the District Court a written declaration of her desire to be
subject to such service."

															As of January 1, 1975, this provision of the Louisiana
Constitution was repealed and replaced by the following provision,
La.Const., Art. V, § 33:

															"(A) Qualifications."

															"A citizen of the state who has reached the age of majority is
eligible to serve as a juror within the parish in which he is
domiciled. The legislature may provide additional
qualifications."

															"(B) Exemptions."

															"The supreme court shall provide by rule for exemption of
jurors."

															[ Footnote 2 ]

															La.Code Crim.Proc., Art. 402, provided:

															"A woman shall not be selected for jury service unless she has
previously filed with the clerk of court of the parish in which she
resides a written declaration of her desire to be subject to jury
service."

															This provision has been repealed, effective January 1, 1975. The
repeal, however, has no effect on the conviction obtained in this
case.

															[ Footnote 3 ]

															The stipulation appears in the Appendix, at 82-84, filed in Edwards v. Healy, No. 73-759, now pending before the
Court.

															[ Footnote 4 ] Ibid. [ Footnote 5 ]

															The death sentence imposed on appellant was annulled and set
aside by the Supreme Court of Louisiana in accord with this Court's
decision in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.
S. 238 (1972), with instructions to the District Court
to impose a life sentence on remand. The Supreme Court of Louisiana
granted a rehearing to appellant on certain other issues not
relevant to this appeal, 282 So.
2d 491 , 500 (1973), and later denied a second petition for
rehearing.

															[ Footnote 6 ]

															Pub.L. 90-274, 82 Stat. 53, 28 U.S.C. § 1861 et
seq. [ Footnote 7 ]

															H.R.Rep. No. 1076, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 8 (1968):

															"It must be remembered that the jury is designed not only to
understand the case, but also to reflect the community's sense of
justice in deciding it. As long as there are significant departures
from the cross-sectional goal, biased juries are the result --
biased in the sense that they reflect a slanted view of the
community they are supposed to represent." See S.Rep. No. 92-516, p. 3 (1971).

															[ Footnote 8 ]

															S.Rep. No. 891, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 9 (1967): "A jury chosen
from a representative community sample is a fundamental of our
system of justice."

															Both the Senate and House Reports made reference to the decision
of the Court of Appeals in Rabinowitz v. United States, 366 F.2d 34, 57 (CA5 1966), which, in sustaining an attack on the
composition of grand and petit jury venires in the Middle District
of Georgia, had held that both the Constitution and 28 U.S.C. §
1861, prior to its amendment in 1968, required a system of jury
selection "that will probably result in a fair cross-section of the
community being placed on the jury rolls." See S.Rep. No.
891, supra, at 11, 18; H.R.Rep. No. 1076, supra, n 7, at 4, 5.

															Elimination of the "key man" system throughout the federal
courts was the primary focus of the Federal Jury Selection and
Service Act of 1968. See H.R.Rep. No. 1076, supra, at 4 and n. 1.

															[ Footnote 9 ]

															114 Cong.Rec. 3992 (1968) (remarks of Mr. Rogers). See
also 118 Cong.Rec. 6939 (1972) (remarks of Mr. Poff).

															[ Footnote 10 ]

															114 Cong.Rec. 3999 (1968) (remarks of Mr. Machen).

															[ Footnote 11 ] Id. at 6609 (remarks of Sen. Tydings).

															[ Footnote 12 ] Compare Peters v. Kiff, 407 U.
S. 493 , 407 U. S.
502 -504 (1972) (opinion of MARSHALL, J., joined by
DOUGLAS and STEWART, JJ.):

															"These principles compel the conclusion that a State cannot,
consistent with due process, subject a defendant to indictment or
trial by a jury that has been selected in an arbitrary and
discriminatory manner, in violation of the Constitution and laws of
the United States. Illegal and unconstitutional jury selection
procedures cast doubt on the integrity of the whole judicial
process. They create the appearance of bias in the decision of
individual cases, and they increase the risk of actual bias as
well."

															" * * * *" "But the exclusion from jury service of a substantial and
identifiable class of citizens has a potential impact that is too
subtle and too pervasive to admit of confinement to particular
issues or particular cases. . . ."

															"Moreover, we are unwilling to make the assumption that the
exclusion of Negroes has relevance only for issues involving race.
When any large and identifiable segment of the community is
excluded from jury service, the effect is to remove from the jury
room qualities of human nature and varieties of human experience,
the range of which is unknown and perhaps unknowable. It is not
necessary to assume that the excluded group will consistently vote
as a class in order to conclude, as we do, that its exclusion
deprives the jury of a perspective on human events that may have
unsuspected importance in any case that may be presented."

															(Footnote omitted.) Controlled studies of the performance of
women as jurors conducted subsequent to the Court's decision in
Ballard have concluded that women bring to juries their own
perspectives and values that influence both jury deliberation and
result. See generally Rudolph, Women on Juries --
Voluntary or Compulsory?, 44 J.Am.Jud.Soc. 206 (1961); 55 J.
Sociology & Social Research 442 (1971); 3 J. Applied Social
Psychology 267 (1973); 19 Sociometry 3 (1956).

															[ Footnote 13 ]

															This is a relatively modern development. Under the English
common law, women, with the exception of the trial of a narrow
class of cases, were not considered to be qualified for jury
service by virtue of the doctrine of propter defectum
sexus, a "defect of sex." 3 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *362.
This common law rule was made statutory by Parliament in 1870, 33
& 34 Vict., c. 77, and then rejected by Parliament in 1919, 9
& 10 Geo. 5, c. 71. In this country, women were disqualified by
state law to sit as jurors until the end of the 19th century. They
were first deemed qualified for jury service by a State in 1898,
Utah Rev.Stat.Ann., Tit. 35, § 1297 (1898). Today, women are
qualified as jurors in all the States. The jury service statutes
and rules of most States do not on their face extend to women the
type of exemption presently before the Court, although the
exemption provisions of some States do appear to treat men and
women differently in certain respects.

															[ Footnote 14 ]

															Florida Stat.1959, § 40.01(1), provided that grand and petit
jurors be taken from male and female citizens of the State
possessed of certain qualification.s and also provided that

															"the name of no female person shall be taken for jury service
unless said person has registered with the clerk of the circuit
court her desire to be placed on the jury list." Hoyt v. Florida, 368 U. S. 57 , 368 U. S. 58 (1961).

															[ Footnote 15 ]

															The state interest, as articulated by the Court, was based on
the assumption that "woman is still regarded as the center of home
and family life." Hoyt v. Florida, supra, at 368 U. S. 62 .
Louisiana makes a similar argument here, stating that its grant of
an automatic exemption from jury service to females involves only
the State's attempt "to regulate and provide stability to the
state's own idea of family life." Brief for Appellee 12.

															[ Footnote 16 ]

															In Hoyt, the Court. determined both that the underlying
classification was rational and that the State's proffered
rationale for extending this exemption to females without family
responsibilities was justified by administrative convenience. 368
U.S. at 368 U. S.
62 -63.

															[ Footnote 17 ]

															In Hoyt v. Florida, supra, the Court placed some
emphasis on the notion, advanced by the State there and by
Louisiana here in support of the rationality of its statutory
scheme, that "woman is still regarded as the center of home and
family life." 368 U.S. at 368 U. S. 62 .
Statistics compiled by the Department of Labor indicate that, in
October, 1974, 54.2% of all women between 18 and 64 years of age
were in the labor force. United States Dept. of Labor, Women in the
Labor Force (Oct.1974). Additionally, in March, 1974, 45.7% of
women with children under the age of 18 were in the labor force;
with respect to families containing children between the ages of
six and 17, 67.3% of mothers who were widowed, divorced, or
separated were in the workforce, while 51.2% of the mothers whose
husbands were present in the household were in the workforce. Even
in family units in which the husband was present and which
contained a child under three years old, 31% of the mothers were in
the workforce. United States Dept. of Labor, Marital and Family
Characteristics of the Labor Force, Table F (March 1974). While
these statistics perhaps speak more to the evolving nature of the
structure of the family unit in American society than to the nature
of the role played by women who happen to be members of a family
unit, they certainly put to rest the suggestion that all women
should be exempt from jury service based solely on their sex and
the presumed role in the home.

															[ Footnote 18 ]

															Section 29 of that Act provided that

															"the jurors shall have the same qualifications as are requisite
for jurors by the laws of the State of which they are citizens, to
serve in the highest courts of law of such State. . . ."

															1 Stat. 88.

															[ Footnote 19 ] Hoyt v. Florida, as had Fay v. New York, 332 U. S. 261 , 332 U. S.
289 -290 (1947), also referred to the historic view that
jury service could constitutionally be confined to males:

															"We need not, however, accept appellant's invitation to canvass
in this case the continuing validity of this Court's dictum in Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S.
303 , 100 U. S. 310 , to the effect
that a State may constitutionally 'confine' jury duty 'to males.'
This constitutional proposition has gone unquestioned for more than
eighty years in the decisions of the Court, see Fay v. New
York, supra, at 332 U. S. 289 -290, and had
been reflected, until 1957, in congressional policy respecting jury
service in the federal courts themselves."

															368 U.S. at 368 U. S. 60 .
(Footnote omitted.) See also Glasser v. United States, 315 U. S. 60 , 315 U. S. 64 -65, 315 U. S. 85 -86
(1942).

															It is most interesting to note that Strauder v. West
Virginia itself stated:

															"[T]he constitution of juries is a very essential part of the
protection such a mode of trial is intended to secure. The very
idea of a jury is a body of men composed of the peers or equals of
the person whose rights it is selected or summoned to determine;
that is, of his neighbors, fellows, associates, persons having the
same legal status in society as that which he holds." 100 U.S.
303 , 100 U. S. 308 (1880).

															MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST, dissenting.

															The Court's opinion reverses a conviction without a suggestion,
much less a showing, that the appellant has been unfairly treated
or prejudiced in any way by the Page 419 U. S. 539 manner in which his jury was selected. In so doing, the Court
invalidates a jury selection system which it approved by a
substantial majority only 13 years ago. I disagree with the Court,
and would affirm the judgment of the Supreme Court of
Louisiana.

															The majority opinion canvasses various of our jury trial cases,
beginning with Smith v. Texas, 311 U.
S. 128 (1940). Relying on carefully chosen quotations,
it concludes that the "unmistakable import" of our cases is that
the fair cross-section requirement "is an essential component of
the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial." I disagree. Fairly
read, the only "unmistakable import" of those cases is that due
process and equal protection prohibit jury selection systems which
are likely to result in biased or partial juries. Smith v.
Texas, supra, concerned the equal protection claim of a Negro
who was indicted by a grand jury from which Negroes had been
systematically excluded. Glasser v. United States, 315 U. S. 60 (1942), dealt with allegations that the only women selected for
jury service were members of a private organization which had
conducted pro-prosecution classes for prospective jurors. Brown
v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443 (1953), rejected the equal protection and due process contentions
of several black defendants that members of their race had been
discriminatorily excluded from their juries. Carter v. Jury
Comm'n, 396 U. S. 320 (1970), similarly dealt with equal protection challenges to a jury
selection system, but the persons claiming such rights were blacks
who had sought to serve as jurors.

															In Hoyt v. Florida, 368 U. S. 57 (1961), this Court gave plenary consideration to contentions that a
system such as Louisiana's deprived a defendant of equal protection
and due process. These contentions were rejected, despite
circumstances which were much more suggestive of possible bias and
prejudice than are those here -- the defendant Page 419 U. S. 540 in Hoyt was a woman whose defense to charges of
murdering her husband was that she had been driven temporarily
insane by his suspected infidelity and by his rejection of her
efforts at reconciliation. Id. at 368 U. S. 58 -59.
The complete swing of the judicial pendulum 13 years later must
depend for its validity on the proposition that, during those
years, things have changed in constitutionally significant ways. I
am not persuaded of the sufficiency of either of the majority's
proffered explanations as to intervening events.

															The first determinative event, in the Court's view, is Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145 (1968). Because the Sixth Amendment was there held applicable to
the States, the Court feels free to dismiss Hoyt as a case
which dealt with entirely different issues, even though, in fact,
it presented the identical problem. But Duncan's rationale
is a good deal less expansive than is suggested by the Court's
present interpretation of that case. Duncan rests on the
following reasoning:

															"The test for determining whether a right extended by the Fifth
and Sixth Amendments with respect to federal criminal proceedings
is also protected against state action by the Fourteenth Amendment
has been phrased in a variety of ways in the opinions of this
Court. The question has been asked whether a right is among those
'fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the
base of all our civil and political institutions,' Powell v.
Alabama, 287 U. S. 45 , 287 U. S.
67 (1932); whether it is 'basic in our system of
jurisprudence,' In re Oliver, 333 U. S.
257 , 333 U. S. 273 (1948); and
whether it is 'a fundamental right, essential to a fair trial,' Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 , 372 U. S.
343 -344 (1963); Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U. S. 1 , 378 U. S. 6 (1964); Pointer
v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400 , 380 U. S.
403 (1965). . . . Because we believe that trial
by Page 419 U. S. 541 jury in criminal cases is fundamental to the American scheme
of justice, we hold that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees a
right of jury trial in all criminal cases. . . ." Id. at 391 U. S.
148 -149. (Emphasis added.)

															That this is a sturdy test, one not readily satisfied by every
discrepancy between federal and state practice, was made clear not
only in Williams v. Florida, 399 U. S.
78 (1970), and Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U.
S. 404 (1972), but also in Duncan itself. In
explaining the conclusion that a jury trial is fundamental to our
scheme of justice, and therefore should be required of the States,
the Court pointed out that jury trial was designed to be a defense
"against arbitrary law enforcement," 391 U.S. at 391 U. S. 156 ,
and "to prevent oppression by the Government." Id. at 391 U. S. 155 .
The Court stated its belief that jury trial for serious offenses is
"essential for preventing miscarriages of justice and for assuring
that fair trials are provided for all defendants." Id. at 391 U. S.
158 .

															I cannot conceive that today's decision is necessary to guard
against oppressive or arbitrary law enforcement, or to prevent
miscarriages of justice and to assure fair trials. Especially is
this so when the criminal defendant involved makes no claims of
prejudice or bias. The Court does accord some slight attention to
justifying its ruling in terms of the basis on which the right to
jury trial was read into the Fourteenth Amendment. It concludes
that the jury is not effective, as a prophylaxis against arbitrary
prosecutorial and judicial power, if the "jury pool is made up of
only special segments of the populace or if large, distinctive
groups are excluded from the pool." Ante at 419 U. S. 530 .
It fails, however, to provide any satisfactory explanation of the
mechanism by which the Louisiana system undermines the prophylactic
role of the jury, either in general or in this case. The best it
can do is to Page 419 U. S. 542 posit " a flavor, a distinct quality,'" which allegedly is
lost if either sex is excluded. Ante at 419 U. S. 532 .
However, this "flavor" is not of such importance that the
Constitution is offended if any given petit jury is not so
enriched. Ante at 419 U. S. 538 . This smacks more of mysticism than of
law. The Court does not even purport to practice its mysticism in a
consistent fashion -- presumably doctors, lawyers, and other
groups, whose frequent exemption from jury service is endorsed by
the majority, also offer qualities as distinct and important as
those at issue here. In Hoyt, this Court considered a stronger due process
claim than is before it today, but found that fundamental fairness
had not been offended. I do not understand how our intervening
decision in Duncan can support a different result. After
all, Duncan imported the Sixth Amendment into the Due
Process Clause only because, and only to the extent that, this was
perceived to be required by fundamental fairness.

															The second change since Hoyt that appears to undergird
the Court's turnabout is societal in nature, encompassing both our
higher degree of sensitivity to distinctions based on sex, and the
"evolving nature of the structure of the family unit in American
society." Ante at 419 U. S. 535 n. 17. These are matters of degree, and it
is perhaps of some significance that, in 1961, Mr. Justice Harlan
saw fit to refer to the

															"enlightened emancipation of women from the restrictions and
protections of bygone years, and their entry into many parts of
community life formerly considered to be reserved to men." Hoyt, 368 U.S. at 368 U. S. 61 -62.
Nonetheless, it may be fair to conclude that the Louisiana system
is, in fact, an anachronism, inappropriate at this "time or place." Ante at 419 U. S. 537 .
But surely constitutional adjudication is a more canalized function
than enforcing as against the States this Court's perception of
modern life. Page 419 U. S. 543 Absent any suggestion that appellant's trial was unfairly
conducted, or that its result was unreliable, I would not require
Louisiana to retry him (assuming the State can once again produce
its evidence and witnesses) in order to impose on him the sanctions
which its laws provide.

Summary:
Here is a summary of the case:

In *Taylor v. Louisiana*, the United States Supreme Court ruled that a Louisiana law, which required women to file a written declaration of their desire to be subject to jury service, violated the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of a jury trial. The Court held that the systematic exclusion of women from jury panels, amounting to 53% of eligible citizens in the judicial district, was unconstitutional. The Court rejected the state's justification for the law and emphasized the right to a jury selected from a fair cross-section of the community. The Court's decision reflected a changing societal perspective on gender equality and the evolving nature of the American family structure.

Is there anything else you would like me to summarize?