## Facts

- Three Arkansas capital defendants filed federal habeas petitions challenging jury selection in their trials: James T. Grigsby (life without parole), Dewayne Hulsey (death sentence), and Ardia V. McCree (life without parole).
- Arkansas capital voir dire excluded for cause prospective jurors whose opposition to the death penalty would prevent or substantially impair their ability to serve in a capital case; those excluded solely for categorical opposition were treated as “Witherspoon excludables.”
- Petitioners challenged using death-qualification to select the jury that determines guilt, arguing it (1) removes a distinctive segment of the community and (2) yields a jury more likely to convict.
- After appellate proceedings, the district court conducted a plenary hearing on empirical social-science evidence concerning whether death-qualified juries are more conviction-prone and whether exclusion affects representativeness.
- The record included studies distinguishing (a) jurors who would refuse to convict because a conviction might lead to death (“nullifiers”) and (b) jurors opposed to the death penalty at sentencing but able to decide guilt impartially (“guilt-phase includables”).
- The studies tended to show death-qualified jurors, as a group, were more likely to vote to convict than Witherspoon-excludable jurors and that attitudes toward capital punishment correlated with guilt-phase decisionmaking.

## Issues

1. Whether excluding all Witherspoon-excludable jurors from the guilt-phase jury in a capital case violates the Sixth Amendment requirement that juries be drawn from a fair cross-section of the community.
2. Whether death-qualifying the guilt-phase jury violates Fourteenth Amendment due process by producing a conviction-prone jury and undermining impartiality.
3. If unconstitutional, what remedy is required for affected convictions and what trial structure is required for future capital cases.

## Decision

- The court held Arkansas’s practice of death-qualifying the guilt-phase jury was unconstitutional.
- The court concluded the practice violated the Sixth Amendment fair-cross-section requirement by systematically excluding a distinctive group: persons with firm opposition to capital punishment.
- The court concluded the practice violated Fourteenth Amendment due process because it produced guilt-phase juries that were more likely to convict.
- The court granted habeas relief to McCree based on the unconstitutional jury-selection process used in his trial.
- The court did not grant identical operative relief to Grigsby and Hulsey in this decision due to case-specific procedural and remedial circumstances.
- The court ordered Arkansas to use bifurcated juries in capital cases: a non-death-qualified jury for guilt and, if necessary, a separate death-qualified jury for sentencing.

## Legal Principles

- The Sixth Amendment fair-cross-section requirement is violated when a “distinctive group” is systematically excluded from the jury-selection process for the tribunal deciding guilt.
- A group may be “distinctive” where members share a common, significant attitude that is meaningfully related to jury functioning in criminal trials, and exclusion occurs as a regular feature of the selection process.
- Due process requires an impartial guilt-phase jury; a selection rule that predictably increases the risk of conviction by excluding otherwise guilt-phase-competent jurors can violate that requirement.
- Death-qualification standards developed for capital sentencing cannot automatically be applied to guilt-phase jury composition if doing so distorts representativeness and impartiality.
- A constitutionally acceptable remedy, as ordered here, is bifurcation: a guilt jury selected without excluding jurors solely for death-penalty opposition (if they can decide guilt fairly), and a separate death-qualified sentencing jury if the case proceeds to punishment.

## Conclusion

The court ruled that excluding categorical opponents of the death penalty from the guilt-phase jury in Arkansas capital trials violated the Sixth Amendment fair-cross-section requirement and Fourteenth Amendment due process because it systematically removed a distinctive group and produced conviction-prone juries; it granted habeas relief to McCree and required bifurcated juries for guilt and sentencing in capital cases.


Grigsby v. Mabry, 569 F. Supp. 1273 (E.D. Ark. 1983)