Vasquez v. Hillery

Background

A Black man was indicted in 1962 by a Kings County grand jury that had no Black members. The judge who selected juries had personally chosen the panels for years and denied a pretrial motion to quash. The defendant was tried, convicted, and pursued state appeals and postconviction remedies for many years before filing a federal habeas petition; a federal district court found systematic racial exclusion and granted relief, and the Court of Appeals affirmed.

Reasoning

The Supreme Court considered whether the long-standing rule requiring automatic reversal when a grand jury systematically excludes a racial group should be abandoned or applied on federal habeas review. The majority reaffirmed more than a century of precedent and held that deliberate racial exclusion in grand jury selection cannot be treated as harmless error and requires reversal because it undermines the charging process and the integrity of the tribunal. The Court also found that the supplemental statistical evidence did not defeat the ordinary state exhaustion requirement in federal review.

Real world impact

The ruling means convictions based on indictments from discriminatorily selected grand juries must be set aside, and States must retry or free defendants if reconviction is not possible. That can create difficult retrial challenges decades later. One Justice concurred separately to note that if a claimant had a full and fair state-court opportunity to litigate the claim, relitigation on federal habeas should be limited.

Dissents or concurrances

A strong dissent argued the error was harmless here and that automatic reversal is an inappropriate remedy after long delay, urging consideration of prejudice to the State’s ability to retry.