Opinion ID: 386882
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Eligible Population

Text: 27 Barksdale contends that he was indicted by a grand jury and convicted by a petit jury from which blacks were systematically excluded. To assess the merits of this claim, it is necessary to first determine the percentage of the population eligible for grand jury service attributable to blacks, and then to determine the percentage of black jurors and veniremen. According to the statute in effect in 1962, compulsory jury service was limited to males at least 21 years old. 16 Jurors had to be literate in English, a resident of the Parish for one year prior to service, and neither under indictment for a crime nor convicted of a felony. In addition, certain persons were occupationally exempt from service. 17 28 Neither the census nor any other source presented to the court contains statistics detailed enough to calculate the exact racial breakdown of the population meeting these statutory criteria. In order to approximate the black percentage of the eligible population, Barksdale's expert, using a complicated mathematical formula called the Three-Point LeGrangian Interpolation, 18 estimated the black male population of Orleans Parish as of 1962 and 1963. He then adjusted that figure to eliminate the estimated proportion of the group which was illiterate or occupationally exempt. 29 In addition to our reluctance to condemn the state's jury system on the basis of mere estimates, there are several reasons why we do not accept the approximations of Barksdale's expert. First of all, the use of 1962 figures ignores the fact that potential jurors had to reside in the Parish for at least one full year before they become eligible for jury service. In addition, the jury wheel is not totally emptied and replaced at any one time, but instead new names are added as the old ones are used. Thus the population of eligibles on the wheel would normally include some names which had been on it for several months. Furthermore, the city directory, from which the names of jurors were selected, certainly did not add all new residents instantaneously. 19 For these reasons, the appropriate date to measure the composition of the jury-eligible population must be well over a year prior to 1962, and we therefore use the more precise figures of the 1960 census rather than 1962 approximations. 20 30 Second, Barksdale's expert seems to have been overzealous in his adjustment of the eligible population on account of occupational exemptions. His adjustments eliminated all persons categorized as Salesmen and Sales Clerks in all but the retail trade. This is certainly a much broader category than the statutory exemption for commercial travelers. In the absence of any exact figure for that exemption, we cannot adjust for the commercial traveler exemption, and will limit our occupational adjustments to the other categories listed in the statute, specified in the census, and included in the adjustments made by Barksdale's expert. 21 Finally, while Barksdale's expert does calculate the proportions of the population with fifth-, sixth- and seventh-grade education as a substitute for the literacy and knowledge requirements for jury service, he emphasizes the fifth-grade figure in making his comparisons. We see no reason to declare erroneous the Louisiana Supreme Court determination that a seventh-grade education approximates the qualifications needed for jury service, State v. Barksdale, supra, 170 So.2d at 382-83, especially in light of the fact that in addition to simple literacy, a juror was required to understand the duties and obligations of citizenship under a republican form of government. 22 We therefore use a seventh-grade education figure to approximate the literacy and knowledge requirements for jury service, although we also calculate an estimate of the eligible population with a sixth-grade education. We find the following estimates of the presumptively eligible black population to be the most appropriate: 23 31 These statistics will be compared below to the percentage of blacks on the grand jury, the grand jury venire and the petit jury venire. 32