Opinion ID: 2615180
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: random selection

Text: The Oregon Constitution, Article VII (Amended), Section 5(2), requires that the grand jury be chosen by lot from the whole number of jurors in attendance at the court. ORS 10.220(1) directs that 40 names shall be drawn, from which number the grand jurors    for the term are selected   . The record in this case indicates that 70 to 95 jurors formed the original panel from which the grand jury members were selected at two separate drawings. In the second drawing, the seventh member was selected in the manner set forth at pages 20-21. It is this second drawing that requires close scrutiny. One of the reasons underlying the constitutional and statutory requirements that the jurors be chosen by lot is to guarantee that the selection will be made in a random manner. Random selection is to prevent the hand-picking of some jurors or the systematic exclusion of others to obtain a fair cross-section of the community. See, United States v. Davis, 546 F.2d 583, 589 (5th Cir.), cert. den. 431 U.S. 906, 97 S.Ct. 1701, 52 L.Ed.2d 391 (1977). However, the fundamental purpose of the law is to prevent discrimination, whether it be on account of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or economic status. Where the procedural errors made by those in charge of selecting jurors do not raise the possibility of defeating this goal, a court should be hesitant to order the drastic remedy of the dismissal of indictments. We are satisfied that the selection of the seventh grand juror complied with the statute and constitution. The name was selected by lot. The 17 names were selected on a Friday for petit jury service the next Tuesday. At that time, for reasons that are not clear from the record, there were but 30 to 40 regular jurors available for service the following Tuesday. The selection of the 17 names was not made with grand jury service in mind. The selection appears to have been made in a random manner in the sense that the clerk called names from the list of available jurors until 18 persons were reached. On the following Tuesday, when the grand jury selection procedure turned up one short, the name of the seventh grand juror was selected at random from the names drawn the previous Friday, who arrived on Tuesday. There is nothing to suggest that the whole number of jurors in attendance at the court the previous Friday exceeded the 30 to 40 previously referred to. The selection appears to have been made in random fashion. One result of requiring seven grand jurors to be chosen from a starting pool of 40, ORS 10.220(1), is the creation of a ratio of at least 7-in-40 (4.7-to-1), to insure a random cross-section of the community. In the instant case, when the final juror was drawn from the names of 17 who had been selected in an essentially random manner, the mathematical ratio increased to 17-to-1.