Cite as: 523 U. S. 392 (1998)
Opinion of Thomas, J.
petitioner's trial jury was affected by discrimination. Instead, the allegation is merely that there was discrimination in the selection of the grand jury (and of only one member). The properly constituted petit jury's verdict of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt was in no way affected by the composition of the grand jury. Indeed, to the extent that race played any part in the composition of petitioner's petit jury, it was by petitioner's own actions, as petitioner used 5 of his 12 peremptory strikes to eliminate blacks from the petit jury venire. Petitioner's attempt to assert that he was injured by the alleged exclusion of blacks at the grand jury stage is belied by his own use of peremptory strikes against blacks at the petit jury stage.
It would be to no avail to suggest that the alleged discrimination in grand jury selection could have caused an indictment improperly to be rendered, because the petit jury's verdict conclusively establishes that no reasonable grand jury could have failed to indict petitioner.3 Nor can the Court find support in our precedents allowing a defendant to challenge his conviction based upon discrimination in grand jury selection, because all of those cases involved defendants' assertions of their own rights. See, e. g., Rose v. Mitchell, 443 U. S. 545 (1979); Cassell v. Texas, 339 U. S. 282 (1950). Although we often do not require a criminal defendant to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between the procedural illegality and the subsequent conviction when the defendant asserts a denial of his own rights, see 499 U. S., at 427-428 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (noting that the government generally bears the burden of establishing harmlessness of such errors), even the Powers majority acknowledged that
3 For this reason, it is unlikely that petitioner ultimately will prevail on the merits of his due process claim. However, I agree with the Court's conclusion that petitioner has standing to raise that claim because petitioner asserts his own due process right. I join Part IV of the Court's opinion because it addresses only standing and does not address "the nature and extent" of petitioner's due process right. Ante, at 400.
407
Page: Index Previous 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007