Opinion ID: 1059329
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: racial composition of venire

Text: Bell assigns error to the circuit court's denial of his motion to strike the jury array and impanel a new venire. He claims that, because there were only two Black individuals in the venire of 50 people, while the Black population of Winchester is 10.5 percent of the total population, he was denied his Sixth Amendment right to select a jury from a representative cross-section of the community. The circuit court denied Bell's motion because he failed to show that there had been a systematic exclusion of Black members of the community from the venire. Instead, the court found that the jury selection system was random. Systematic exclusion of a distinctive group in the community must be shown in order to establish that a defendant's constitutional right to a fair jury selection system has been violated. Watkins v. Commonwealth, 238 Va. 341, 347, 385 S.E.2d 50, 53 (1989) (citing Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 538, 95 S.Ct. 692, 42 L.Ed.2d 690 (1975)), cert. denied, 494 U.S. 1074, 110 S.Ct. 1797 (1990). As the court correctly held, Bell did not establish a systematic exclusion of any distinctive group in the community. Thus, we conclude that the court did not err in denying Bell's motion.