Ford v. United States

1988-01-19

Headline: Court denies review on whether magistrates may run jury selection, leaving appeals-court split and trial judges and criminal defendants without a single nationwide rule.

Holding: The Court declined to review whether district courts may delegate jury selection to magistrates, leaving the split among appeals courts intact and the lower-court conviction in place.

Real World Impact:

Leaves conflicting rules among appeals courts about magistrates running jury selection.
Allows the defendant’s conviction to stand despite the procedural dispute.
Keeps trial courts without clear Supreme Court guidance on magistrates’ role.

Topics: jury selection, magistrates, criminal trials, federal court procedure

Summary

Background

A defendant was convicted of stealing Government property after a federal jury trial. A United States Magistrate presided over the four-hour jury selection, and neither side expressly consented or objected. The Fifth Circuit first rejected the challenge, then reheard the case en banc and affirmed the conviction while holding the Magistrates Act did not authorize delegating jury selection as an "additional duty." Lower courts have split on this question.

Reasoning

The central question was whether the Federal Magistrates Act allows a district judge to let a magistrate conduct voir dire, the process of questioning and selecting jurors. The Fifth Circuit said the Act does not authorize that delegation but allowed the conviction to stand because the defendant did not object at trial and the error was not "plain error" that made the trial fundamentally unfair. The Supreme Court declined to review that split among federal appeals courts, so it took no new legal position here.

Real world impact

Because the Supreme Court denied review, the differing rules in the circuits remain in place. Trial courts and litigants across different regions will continue to follow their circuit’s approach about whether magistrates may run jury selection. The particular defendant’s conviction also remains affirmed for procedural reasons described by the lower court.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice White dissented from the denial of review, emphasizing the circuit split and questioning whether the lower court correctly treated the magistrate’s role as a non‑prejudicial error that could be ignored.