Castaneda v. Partida

Function of Grand Juries

Grand juries perform two functions. The first is to judge the strength of the prosecutor's case by examining the indictment and questioning witnesses about the alleged criminal action of the accused person. The second is to investigate wrongdoing based on its members' concerns or in regard to matters put before the grand jury by the judge who appointed it.

Grand juries were a cornerstone of the criminal justice system in England. Their origin commonly is traced to the Assize of Clarendon in 1166. It was required that criminal accusations thereafter be “presented” to grand juries composed of 12 “good and lawful men” selected from the locale. The tradition was incorporated into American law in colonial times and thereafter enshrined in the Fifth Amendment of the Bill of Rights. It initially was presumed that in the tightly knit communities from which grand jury members were recruited, they would personally be aware of illegal behavior and the character of persons who were said to be responsible for it. Today, there is much debate about the need for grand juries, since they often rubber stamp the wishes of the prosecutor who presents cases to them. Nonetheless, grand jury panels, whose work is secret (though news of their proceedings sometimes is leaked), have the ability to protect persons who are innocent or whose guilt is unlikely to be proven before a petit or trial jury from the expense and personal distress of a public hearing.

[Page 94]In Texas, grand juries were chosen by what was known as the “key-man” system, whereby three to five jury commissioners were appointed by district judges and charged with putting together a list of 15 to 20 candidates for service on the grand jury. The judge then picked the panel from the list compiled by the commissioners.

Judicial Rulings in Castaneda v. Partida

Partida had been convicted in 1972 in Hildalgo County, an area in south Texas on the Rio Grande, for the crime of burglary of a private residence in the nighttime with the intent to commit rape. He was sentenced to a minimum of 5 years and a maximum of 8 years of imprisonment.

The first federal court to consider Partida's appeal declared that the key-man system was highly subjective and archaic and inefficient. Nonetheless, it ruled against Partida on the ground that Mexican Americans constituted a governing majority in the county and that it therefore could not be presumed that they would intentionally discriminate against themselves.

The U.S. Court of Appeal for the Fifth Circuit disagreed with the lower court's “governing majority” emphasis but held that the state had not satisfactorily demonstrated that Partida was not a victim of discrimination that resulted from the selection of members of the grand jury.

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