Discriminating Jury Pool

The Times Picayune reports on an interesting disupte regarding the Jefferson Parish jury pool. Clive Stafford-Smith, who is representing a defendant in a first-degree murder retrial, argues that the jury pool unfairly discrminates against African-American residents because the jury pool database is alleged to contain more than 830,000 names even though only 450,000 people live in the parish. The Clerk of Court, Jon Gegenheimer, answers that the larger database contains duplicates and other individuals ineligible for jury duty and that the jury pool database only contains about 200,000 names.

Posted by AJR at December 24, 2002 02:06 PM