Campbell v. Louisiana, 523 U.S. 392, 4 (1998)

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Cite as: 523 U. S. 392 (1998)

Opinion of the Court

murder. Campbell, who is white, filed a timely pretrial motion to quash the indictment on the grounds the grand jury was constituted in violation of his equal protection and due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment and in violation of the Sixth Amendment's fair-cross-section requirement. Campbell alleged a longstanding practice of racial discrimination in the selection of grand jury forepersons in the parish. His sole piece of evidence is that, between January 1976 and August 1993, no black person served as a grand jury foreperson in the parish, even though more than 20 percent of the registered voters were black persons. See Brief for Petitioner 16. The State does not dispute this evidence. The trial judge refused to quash the indictment because "Campbell, being a white man accused of killing another white man," lacked standing to complain "where all of the forepersons were white." App. to Pet. for Cert. G-33.

After Campbell's first trial resulted in a mistrial, he was retried, convicted of second-degree murder, and sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole. Campbell renewed his challenge to the grand jury foreperson selection procedures in a motion for new trial, which was denied. See id., at I-2. The Louisiana Court of Appeal reversed, because, under our decision in Powers v. Ohio, 499 U. S. 400 (1991), Campbell had standing to object to the alleged discrimination even though he is white. 651 So. 2d 412 (1995). The Court of Appeal remanded the case for an evidentiary hearing because it found Campbell's evidence of discrimination inadequate. Id., at 413.

The Louisiana Supreme Court reversed. It distinguished Powers as turning on the "considerable and substantial impact" that a prosecutor's discriminatory use of peremptory challenges has on a defendant's trial as well as on the integrity of the judicial system. See 661 So. 2d 1321, 1324 (1995). The court declined to extend Powers to a claim of discrimination in the selection of a grand jury foreperson. It also found Hobby v. United States, 468 U. S. 339 (1984), did not

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