United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

California v. Harris, 468 U.S. 1303 (1984)

California v. Harris

No. A-19

Decided July 23, 1984

468 U.S. 1303

Syllabus

California's application to stay, pending disposition of its petition for certiorari, the California Supreme Court's judgment -- reversing respondent's capital murder conviction and holding that the trial jury, which was empaneled by the use of a voter registration list, was not drawn from a fair cross-section of the community -- is denied. It is doubtful that four Members of this Court will vote to grant certiorari, since it is questionable that the State, under state law, had preserved for review the issue whether the need for efficient jury selection justifies resort to such neutral lists as voter registration rolls even though they do not perfectly reflect the proportion of blacks and Hispanics in the population at large.