Judges Respond to Concerns About Jury Pool Diversity

Those who have worked in Superior Court for more than a few years say jury pools have more white faces than they did a decade ago.

The census shows that whites are moving into Washington in greater numbers. But the public defender service has long suspected that flaws in how the Superior Court identifies people eligible for jury duty might be distorting the citywide pool.

In recent years, the District began using new sources for names, such as public assistance rolls, to try to expand a pool that has traditionally drawn on people who file income taxes and are registered to vote and licensed to drive.

In a 1979 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court said that to challenge the makeup of a jurisdiction's jury pool, a defendant has to prove more than just a significant underrepresentation of some group. "You have to show that there's a systematic reason," said David A. Moran, an associate professor at Wayne State University Law School in Detroit.

But with so few prospective jurors in the District listing their race on the questionnaires, it may be hard to determine a pool's racial composition. "There's a lot of information missing, and that's part of what makes a . . . challenge difficult," Moran said.

Lawyers from the public defender service have been asking judges to allow them to examine court data on jury pools, however limited it might be. But judges have denied the motions -- until this month.

After public defenders focused on the right to challenge the jury system, D.C. Superior Court Judge James E. Boasberg ruled that the defense is entitled to information and data about the way potential jurors are identified and summoned.

Boasberg said he will determine what information must be turned over after receiving briefs from the attorney general's office, which represents the court, and Jason D. Tulley, the public defender who is also Horne's attorney.

Boasberg's action is likely to prompt similar challenges. "There are a lot of repercussions and ramifications from this," Boasberg told the lawyers. "I don't act lightly."

In deciding to call for a new group of potential jurors in the Horne case, Kravitz also seemed to recognize that he was on tricky legal terrain. It was impossible to determine from the jury pool that he dismissed whether there had been any systematic exclusion of blacks, he said. And the defense did not have a legal right to get a new group, he said.

"I'm not saying I have a legal basis, but the sort of the spirit of it is we should have a fair cross section," Kravitz told the lawyers.

And so he took action.