Posted on 12/05/2006 5:07:55 AM PST by radar101
A judge has ordered San Diego Superior Court officials to conduct a monthlong survey of all jurors who show up at county courts to help determine whether the system is operating fairly.
The decision by Judge David M. Gill on Friday was the latest – and potentially most significant – step in an evolving challenge to how the court summons county residents to serve on jury panels.
It comes in the wake of several changes the court has made to the summons system since a defense lawyer first pursued the challenge, which has uncovered numerous problems with the system including that as many as 470,000 people had been erroneously dropped from the jury summons lists.
Court officials have since gone back and made changes to fix the problems. But the order for the survey indicates the judge is not convinced.
The survey will ask jurors their race, age, ZIP code and which courthouse they were told to report to, said defense lawyer Christopher Plourd, who has brought the main challenge to the system.
Gill set a March 5 deadline to complete the survey. Yesterday, Michael Roddy, the executive officer for the court and the jury commissioner, said he was reviewing Gill's order to determine how to administer the survey.
Results will go a long way to answer the question at the heart of Plourd's contention that the county system unfairly excludes minority groups and low-income people.
“This is a big step,” Plourd said of Gill's ruling. “It will really tell the story on whose numbers are right.” He said he anticipated the survey would be conducted in January and February.
Plourd is representing Mark Brown, an African-American facing the death penalty in connection with two homicides. Since June, Plourd has been seeking data on the court's procedures and techniques for summoning jurors.
Based on one early, unscientific survey of one trial, Plourd said it appears that Latino jurors are underrepresented in view of their population in the county
Defendants are entitled under the law to a jury which fairly represents the community at large. The survey is expected to provide enough data that, once analyzed, would be able to show how the system is working.
Courts have generally held that disparities between a group's representation in the jury pool and its share of the overall population have to be large – more than a few percentage points – to be considered unconstitutional.
One legal expert said the decision was important for Plourd and other defense lawyers who have filed challenges in at least 30 other cases.
“Being able to get that kind of data is a critical part of these lawsuits, and many of them never even get to that point,” said Shaun Martin, a professor at the University of San Diego School of Law. “This is a giant hurdle that they've overcome.”
Martin said he expects Gill's survey order to generate more challenges. Similar surveys in cases outside San Diego County have shown that there are big disparities in the jury summons system, Martin said.
Why is race a factor in jury selection????? (other than the obvious OJ-Jury scenario)?
Leni
While they are nicely interacting with the jury pool, they might advise them of both their rights and their powers as jurors, including the obligation to judge not only the facts but the law as well, lest the government get uppity and try to convict people of "crimes" that are not crimes at all.
It never ceases to be curious that blacks who are arrested, and convicted, often never argue as to whether or not they committed the crime, but after arrest,IMMEDIATELY play the race card, claiming they are un-fairly being "targeted".
Worse yet, black jurors (such as in the OJ case), feel obligated to acquit, to teach "Whitey" a lesson.
Definitely not PC to bring the truth forward, however....
Translation: Some liberal activist thinks that too many Latinos are being convicted by juries that are "too white". There is already a process by which to challenge convictions where lawyers abuse the peremptory challenge system. If hispanics are being dumped from the juries during voir dire without good cause, there may indeed be a problem... but a jury pool questionnaire is not the way to fix it. The mechanism is already in place; let 'em use it. Unless this is all sheer speculation, of course.
Defendants are entitled under the law to a jury which fairly represents the community at large. The survey is expected to provide enough data that, once analyzed, would be able to show how the system is working.
Courts have generally held that disparities between a group's representation in the jury pool and its share of the overall population have to be large – more than a few percentage points – to be considered unconstitutional.
Many jurisdictions have a "gap" between the county's actual racial demographics and that seen in the jury pool. The differences are often due to the sources of name and address data used to compile the list of potential jurors. I've seen that information gathered from the county registrar of voters and the state DMV records, to name just two. If you're not registered to vote or are driving without a license, you've a lot less likely to get a jury duty notice. I wonder what percentage of that county's hispanics are illegal.
Guess it would be too simplified to call 300 people to jury duty then select the final 12 by blind lottery.
It always seemed 'selecting' the jury by each side trying to pick the ones biased in their favor was decidedly UNfair.
Why is race a factor in jury selection????? (other than the obvious OJ-Jury scenario)?
There you go, you answered your own question.
If not , will the jury pool ever likely reflect the population at large in the jurisdiction ?
The other assumption that has to be questioned is whether or not various poulations respond to jury summons at the same rate. It seems to me that it is unlikely that the elderly have the same response rates as the young, white working poor different than black poor , etc.
The bottom line is that the pool of jurors is unlikely ever to exactly mirror the population at large.
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