Opinion ID: 1587246
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Postponement of jury service.

Text: During the January 27, 2000, hearing, the trial judge informed the attorneys of his intent to postpone jury service for eight full-time students until the end of the school year because he felt it would be difficult, i.e., a hardship, for such students to lose the time and money they had invested in their education. The trial judge then inquired, Does anybody object to that? Counsel for both appellants responded, No. The trial judge also postponed jury service for a college professor who taught two class hours three days per week. During the February 4, 2000, hearing, the trial judge informed counsel that he had postponed jury service for another full-time student, and during voir dire at trial, he postponed jury service for three more full-time students. Counsel's decisions with respect to jury selection are regarded as matters of trial strategy. Hodge v. Commonwealth, Ky., 17 S.W.3d 824, 837 (2000). Thus, defense counsels' agreement to the postponement of jury service for full-time students was a matter of trial strategy. Further, as noted in Part I, issue 4(a), supra, whether to postpone a prospective juror's service because of hardship is within the sound discretion of the trial judge. We discern no abuse of discretion in this regard. Nor did the trial judge's decision to postpone jury service for students amount to a systematic exclusion in violation of the appellants' right to a jury drawn from a fair cross section of the community. Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 531, 95 S.Ct. 692, 698, 42 L.Ed.2d 690 (1975). A necessary condition for systematic exclusion is that the group allegedly excluded be a distinctive group. Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357, 364, 99 S.Ct. 664, 668, 58 L.Ed.2d 579 (1979). A distinctive group must comprise a substantial percentage of the county population, and, absent a showing of numerosity and lack of community needs, no profession or occupation is considered a distinctive group. Commonwealth v. McFerron, Ky., 680 S.W.2d 924 (1984), overruling Colvin v. Commonwealth, Ky., 570 S.W.2d 281 (1978) (schoolteachers), and overruling by implication Reid v. Commonwealth, Ky.App., 659 S.W.2d 217 (1983) (doctors and lawyers). In fact, we explicitly held in Ford v. Commonwealth, Ky., 665 S.W.2d 304 (1983), that college students ... are not distinctive ... as a class. Id. at 308. Nor are young adults a distinctive group whose underrepresentation would deny a defendant the right to a fair cross section. Smith v. Commonwealth, Ky., 734 S.W.2d 437, 442 (1987); McQueen v. Commonwealth, Ky., 669 S.W.2d 519, 521 (1984); Ford, supra, at 308.