JURIES Illiterate Peers

The 1965 Voting Rights Act has banished the discriminatory literacy requirements that disenfranchised Southern Negroes for almost 100 years. But one of the fruits of becoming a registered voter is eligibility for jury duty, and if a strange case in Florida's Collier County is any guide, Southern courts may now face a problem of more illiterate Negro voters (in addition to already illiterate whites) becoming illiterate jurors.

In the Gulf Coast town of Naples, a previously convicted white moonshiner named Thomas D'Andrea was tried last month for systematically cutting telephone lines to steal the copper wire. By all the evidence, each of D'Andrea's six jurors met the legal requirements: they were local citizens who had no felony convictions and were registered voters. They were also, as it happened, all Negroes, and D'Andrea thereupon wound up with what was reportedly the first all-Negro jury to try a white man in Florida.

When Foreman Melt Williams announced the verdict after two hours' deliberation, four white spectators distinctly heard him say, "Guilty." But the courtroom was noisy, and Judge Harold Smith apparently did not hear. He requested a written verdict. Someone had handed Williams a slip of paper, he had signed it, and it was brought to the clerk. It said: "Innocent."

No one was more surprised at D'Andrea's acquittal than Foreman Williams, who later insisted that all six jurors had decided on guilt, even though "some of the men said if we found this white man guilty, the judge would turn him loose, and he would come looking for us." Added Williams: "I can't read or write. I believe I was tricked to sign the wrong paper." Two other jurors agreed with Williams' analysis, but the remaining three swore that they thought all six had voted for innocence. To compound the confusion, three jurors were illiterate, one could not sign his name, and none actually knew what Williams had signed.

Since a Florida D.A. cannot appeal in such cases, all the prosecution can do now is try to get the verdict expunged on the ground that a six-man jury must be unanimous. Then, if Judge Smith can resolve the issue of possible double jeopardy, D'Andrea may be retried. Ironically, illiteracy is unlikely to be an issue. Had the foreman signed the guilty slip in the same mistaken manner, D'Andrea could have raised that issue as a denial of fair trial. For the mo ment, though, he is delighted with the verdict of his illiterate peers.

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