We have been informed by an alert correspondent of a likely
jury-rigging scheme in south Georgia. It appears that the local
legal establishment draws names for the jury pool from a less
than representative cross section of the local eligible
population. It is known that some people are selected repeatedly
in short periods of time, while others are seldom selected--once
in twenty years, for instance.
In addition, a secret list of jurors who have given guilty
verdicts in the past is maintained by the District Attorney. A
local defense attorney petitioned the court for a copy of that
list because it gave the D.A. an unfair advantage during jury
selection, but the judge refused to require the D.A. to release
the list.
The question, of course, is are people being selected over
and over again for "hanging juries"? The D.A. could build an
impressive conviction record by doing this, but defendants'
rights to a fair trial would be shredded!
A local attorney points out that conviction-prone jurors are
the kind of people insurance companies love to have hear
personal-injury cases, and they tend to side with polluters
against environmentalists, and with the establishment against
civil rights plaintiffs. The Jury Commission is scrambling to
cover its tracks now that questions have been raised.
It may be that variants of this kind of sleazy operation are
common throughout the country. If you are rarely or never called
for jury duty despite being registered to vote and licensed to
drive, perhaps a little digging around might yield some
interesting information.
If and when jury-rigging can be identified in a local
judicial district, the press might be very interested in what you
have uncovered. Such information could be of great utility in
promoting awareness of FIJA, and could be used to rally excluded
groups around the issue of jury rights.
