PEOPLE OF MI V RAMON LEE BRYANT
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STATE OF MICHIGAN
COURT OF APPEALS
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN,
UNPUBLISHED
March 16, 2004
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v
No. 241442
Kent Circuit Court
LC No. 01-008625-FC
RAMON LEE BRYANT,
Defendant-Appellant.
Before: Smolenski, P.J., and Sawyer and Borrello, JJ.
BORRELLO, J. (concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I dissent because I find that Kent County, when selecting jurors, engaged in the
systematic exclusion of African-Americans, thereby denying defendant of his Sixth
Amendment right to a fair and impartial jury. While my brother jurists provide an
excellent analysis of the case law on the issue of underrepresentation of distinctive
groups in jury pools, I respectfully dissent from their decision to allow the trial court to
again determine if the defendant was denied his Sixth Amendment right to a fair and
impartial jury. The trial court previously made a finding on this issue, and I disagree with
the analysis utilized by the trial court. Because I find that the County of Kent
systematically excluded African-Americans from their jury pools, in lieu of remand to the
trial court on this issue, I would reverse the conviction and remand the matter to the trial
court for a new trial.
The majority correctly asserts that the issue of underrepresentation of minorities,
and specifically African-Americans, on Kent County juries is a problem that this Court
has faced on several occasions. However, because defendants in those prior cases failed
to perfect the issue for appeal, this Court has been denied the opportunity to address this
issue. It is an issue which this Court must review with the utmost of assiduousness,
because at stake in our analysis is an individual’s right to a fair and impartial jury.
In this case, the prosecution admits there were “problems” in the selection of
juries in Kent County. Those problems arose, according to the prosecution, because:
[I]n essence . . . a computer program used to select potential jurors
chose a disproportionately large number of jurors from areas with lower
zip codes, which had the unintended effect of selecting fewer jurors from
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areas of the county where African-Americans live. The assumption is that
this led to an artificial shortfall of African-American jurors, though to
what extent has never been determined.
In view of the fact that we have no other evidence before us to suggest any other
reason(s) for the underrepresentation of African-Americans on Kent County juries, we
must assume the statement of the prosecution to be accurate. I therefore examine the
rationale offered by the prosecution to address the issue of underrepresentation of
African-Americans on Kent County juries, and their affect on the defendant’s Sixth
Amendment right.
The record is devoid of any evidence that the computer program which caused the
problem was an intentional act of anyone acting on behalf of the Kent County jury
selection process. However, this does not excuse the fact that this program error was
allowed to go unabated for the years 2001 through 2002. Our record shows that it was a
teacher, called to jury duty, who first asked the question of why Kent County jury pools
were so lacking in their number of African-Americans. Only after his diligence in
searching for an answer to this question was the prosecution’s assertion for the basis of
the problem brought to light.
I do not accept the proposition that an unabated computer program error cannot
lead to a finding of systematic exclusion of African-Americans from jury pools. I find
the reverse to be true. In so finding, I reject the prosecution’s implied declaration that
this problem can be labeled a mechanical defect. Like all things involving computers,
they can only do what an individual has programmed the software to do. In this case, an
individual programmed the software in such a fashion that it led to the systematic
exclusion of zip codes that had higher representations of minority populations. Even if
the programmer lacked the intent to cultivate the consequences which arose from this
faulty software, the result of the error was to deny a legally adequate representation of
African-Americans from serving on Kent County juries. Because case law is devoid of
the suggestion that we must find the intent to exclude African-Americans from jury
pools, the record is clear that Kent County did, albeit with a machine, systemically
exclude African-Americans from jury pools. There is no better evidence of systematic
exclusion from jury selection then a computer which has been programmed to exclude
people who live in zip codes with higher minority populations, while at the same time
disproportionately including zip codes where few, if any, minorities reside.
I concur with the majority on all other issues defendant has raised in his appeal.
/s/ Stephen L. Borrello
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