Opinion ID: 6344850
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Racial Makeup of Jury Panel

Text: Nyah then argues his Sixth Amendment right to a fair cross-section of the community was violated because the jury venire lacked black prospective jurors. When “a defendant claims that jury selection violated his Sixth Amendment right to a fair cross-section of the community, we review the district court’s decision de novo.” United States v. Reed, 972 F.3d 946, 953 (8th Cir. 2020), cert. denied, 141 S. Ct. 2765 (2021). Under the Sixth Amendment, criminal defendants are entitled “to an ‘impartial jury drawn from a fair cross-section of the community.’” Id. (quoting Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 536 (1975)). Nyah does not dispute his jury venire was drawn from a fair cross-section of the community, so he does not establish a Sixth Amendment violation.4 In light of this undisputed fact, the absence of black prospective jurors on the jury venire does not establish a Sixth Amendment violation. See United States v. Erickson, 999 F.3d 622, 627 (8th Cir. 2021) (“It is the number of [persons from the relevant distinctive group] in the jury pool, not the number who showed up for jury selection in a particular case, that is relevant to assessing the merits of a fair cross section challenge.”), cert. denied, 142 S. Ct. 512 (2021). We affirm the district court’s conclusion Nyah’s Sixth Amendment rights were not violated.