Duren v. Missouri case brief

Duren v. Missouri case brief summary
439 U.S. 357 (1979)

CASE SYNOPSIS

Petitioner sought certiorari review of a judgment from the Missouri Supreme Court, which affirmed petitioner's murder conviction and which held that the State of Missouri's automatic exclusion from jury service of women who requested not to serve, based on Mo. Constitutional art. I, § 22(b) and Mo. Rev. Stat. § 494.031(2) (Supp. 1978), did not violate the United States Constitution's fair cross-section requirement.

CASE FACTS
The State of Missouri exempted any woman from jury service if she did not want to serve. The petitioner established that only 14.5 percent of the persons on the post-summons weekly venires during the period in which his jury was chosen were female. Thus, he contended that his right to trial by a jury chosen from a fair cross-section of his community was denied.


DISCUSSION

• The United States Supreme Court held that such systematic exclusion of women that resulted in jury venires that averaged less than 15 percent female violated the United States Constitution's fair cross-section requirement. 
• The petitioner established a prima facie violation of the fair cross-section requirement. 
• The group he alleged to be excluded, women, was a distinctive group in the community. 
• His statistical presentation was prima facie evidence of population characteristics for the purpose of making a fair cross-section violation. 
• His undisputed demonstration that a large discrepancy occurred not just occasionally, but in every weekly venire for a period of nearly a year, manifestly indicated that the cause of the underrepresentation was systematic, that is, it was inherent in the particular jury selection process.

CONCLUSION

The Court reversed and remanded the judgment of the Missouri Supreme Court.

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