Opinion ID: 1720797
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Racially Disproportionate Panel

Text: During jury selection, MacKintrush moved for a mistrial on the basis that the jury panel was racially out of kilter in that it did not reflect the racial makeup of Pulaski County. He noted, for example, that out of thirty-two possible jurors called, only five were African-Americans. In support of his argument, he observed that while statistics show Pulaski County has a population of about twenty-three percent African-Americans, only fifteen percent of the jury panel called in this case was African-American. Under Ark.Code Ann. § 16-32-103 (Repl. 1994), the jury venire is chosen at random by computer selection from voter registration lists. This court has frequently upheld this process and has stated that it guarantees that there can be no purposeful exclusion of African-Americans. See, e.g., Lee v. State, 327 Ark. 692, 942 S.W.2d 231 (1997). We have also noted that [w]hile it is clear that juror selection may not be the result of discrimination against groups defined by race, color, creed, or sex, the Supreme Court has made it equally clear that this does not mean that each jury must have on it persons representative of each distinctive group in the population from which it is chosen. Mitchell v. State, 299 Ark. 566, 568, 776 S.W.2d 332, 333 (1989). We find no merit to this argument. Affirmed. CORBIN, J., not participating.