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04/03/02 "See News Release 028 for any concurrences and/or dissents."

SUPREME COURT OF LOUISIANA No. 95-KA-1489 STATE OF LOUISIANA VERSUS RICKY JOSEPH LANGLEY ON APPEAL FROM THE FOURTEENTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT, PARISH OF CALCASIEU CALOGERO, Chief Justice* Compelled by respect for the United States Supreme Court's decision in Campbell v. Louisiana, 523 U.S. 392, 118 S.Ct. 1419, 140 L.Ed.2d 551 (1998), this court, after affirming Ricky Langley's conviction and sentence to death, granted in part his application for rehearing and remanded the case to the district court for an evidentiary hearing and a determination as to whether there had been intentional discrimination on the basis of race and/or gender in the selection of the foreperson for the grand jury that indicted Langley in 1992 in Calcasieu Parish. State v. Langley, 951489 (La. 4/14/98), 711 So. 2d 651, 675 (on rehearing). After conducting that hearing, the district court found that the defendant had established a prima facie case of intentional discrimination, which the State failed to rebut. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the district court's ruling granting the defendant's motion to quash the indictment. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY In 1992, a Calcasieu Parish Grand Jury indicted the defendant for first degree murder. Following a 1994 trial, a jury found the defendant guilty as charged, and

Retired Justice Walter F. Marcus, Jr., assigned as Justice ad hoc, sitting for Associate Justice Jeannette Theriot Knoll, recused. 1

*

unanimously sentenced him to death. On original hearing in State v. Langley, supra, this Court affirmed his conviction and sentence of death. In an unpublished appendix, we addressed the defendant's claim that the district court had improperly denied without a hearing his pretrial motion to quash the indictment on grounds of racial discrimination generally in the selection of grand jury forepersons in Calcasieu Parish and specifically in the selection of the grand jury that had indicted him. Our resolution of the issue relied in part on our prior decision in State v. Campbell, 95-0824 (La. 10/2/95), 661 So. 2d 1321, which held that a white defendant lacked standing to raise equal protection claims involving discrimination against African-Americans in the selection of grand juries. One week after this Court rendered its opinion in Langley, the United States Supreme Court reversed our decision in State v. Campbell, and held that a white defendant does have third-party standing to raise claims of racial discrimination in the selection of the grand jury that indicted him. Campbell v. Louisiana, 523 U.S. at 400, 118 S.Ct. at 1424. The defendant immediately moved for rehearing, and in June 1998, this Court granted the motion in part and remanded the case to the district court for an evidentiary hearing in light of that very recent United States Supreme Court opinion in Campbell v. Louisiana. Langley, 95-1489, 711 So.2d at 675. During the summer of 2000, the district court conducted the evidentiary hearing as ordered. In March 2001, the district court issued a judgment finding that the state had failed to rebut a prima facie case of discrimination made by the defendant and that the indictment must be quashed, thereby upsetting the conviction and ordering further proceedings. The State now seeks review of the district court's ruling1.
1

Although the defendant contends this Court lacks jurisdiction over the State's appeal, La. Code Crim. Proc. art. 913 explicitly provides that "[a]n appeal by the state suspends the ruling or judgment from which the appeal is taken, except when the ruling or judgment requires the release of the defendant." The granting of a motion to quash on grounds of purposeful racial discrimination in the 2

At the time of the defendant's indictment in 1992, Calcasieu Parish followed the system of grand jury foreperson selection prescribed in La. Code Crim. Proc. art. 413(B), before it was amended in 1999.2 Prior to amendment, the article called for the district court to select one person from the grand jury venire to serve as the foreperson of the grand jury. Then, pursuant to former Article 413(B), the sheriff would draw "indiscriminately and by lot from the envelope containing the remaining names on the grand jury venire a sufficient number of names to complete the grand jury." La. Code Crim. Proc. art. 413(B) (West 1991). The foreperson votes as any other juror. Thus, when a judge in Louisiana chose a foreperson, he also selected one member of the grand jury panel outside of the random draw used to compose the balance of the panel. In the instant case, the foreperson from the grand jury that indicted the defendant was a white male.
selection of the grand jury that indicted the defendant does not require the release or discharge of the defendant. See La. Code Crim. Proc. art. 538. The State's appeal in this case under La. Code Crim. Proc. art. 912(B)(1) has, therefore, suspended the judgment of the district court sustaining the motion to quash and setting aside the defendant's conviction and sentence. This case remains one in which the defendant has been convicted of a capital offense and a sentence of death has actually been imposed. The State's appeal therefore properly lies within the jurisdiction of this Court as a matter of La. Const. art. 5,

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