Opinion ID: 1830727
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: standard deviation

Text: A final method of calculating whether representation is fair and reasonable is standard deviation analysis. This analysis explains the probability that the disparity between the percentages of the black population in the relevant community and black prospective jurors in the qualified jury pool is a result of random chance. To determine whether any given disparity is attributable to the variations that can occur in a random selection, courts first ascertain the standard deviation from the expected random allocation of jurors, and then compare whether the disparity is beyond that standard deviation. Courts calculate the standard deviation by multiplying the number of prospective jurors in the jury pool by the percentage of the distinct group in the population by the percentage of the population that is not in the distinct group, and then taking the square root of that product. The square root is the standard deviation. If the disparity is beyond that standard deviation, then the representation is not fair and reasonable. See Castaneda v. Partida, supra at 496, n. 17, 97 S.Ct. 1272 (applying standard deviation analysis to a jury discrimination claim arising under the Fourteenth Amendment); Jackman, supra at 1247, n. 5; Ramseur, supra at 1232. Here, defendant cannot show that the representation was not fair and reasonable under a standard deviation analysis. The jury pool consisted of 929 names, so we multiply that number by .728 (black population of Kent County), and then multiply by .972 (nonblack population of Kent County), to arrive at the product 657.38, the square root of which is twenty-six. [11] Thus, although defendant could have expected sixty-eight black prospective jurors in the qualified jury pool, the standard deviation for a purely random sample is twenty-six, so the instant allocation is not statistically significant. That is, although the juror allocation is not precisely proportionate to the Kent County population, a purely random sample could standardly produce results varying by twenty-six from the expected number, sixty-eight. Unless the number of black prospective jurors in the qualified jury pool varies from the expected number by twenty-six or more, it is not an extraordinary result based on a random selection. Therefore, the representation was neither unfair nor unreasonable under this analysis. [12] Generally, courts have applied a standard deviation analysis in Fourteenth Amendment cases, not in Sixth Amendment cases. Ramsey, supra at 428, n. 59. Although courts have used standard deviation analyses in Sixth Amendment cases, see Jackman, supra ; Ramseur, supra, [13] no court in the country has accepted [a standard deviation analysis] alone as determinative in Sixth Amendment challenges to jury selection systems. United States v. Rioux, 97 F.3d 648, 655 (C.A.2, 1996).