Opinion ID: 1980188
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Jury Motion.

Text: In his Jury Motion, Gause (subsequently joined by Wilkey) claimed that the Superior Court system for selecting juries produces jury venires that do not reflect a fair cross-section of the community and systematically excludes African Americans, in violation of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments and the DCJSA. In support of his motion, Gause filed, inter alia, an affidavit by Richard Seltzer, a Professor of Political Science at Howard University who specializes in statistical analysis of jury composition. Based on the data available to him, including information regarding venires in several other cases, Dr. Seltzer stated that the average percentage of black jurors in the Superior Court venires observed by him and his investigators on Mondays was 52.2%, and that in one Monday case [3] the percentage of black jurors was only 22.8%. According to Dr. Seltzer, the general population of the District was 60% black, [4] and the disparities that he found on Mondays7.8% and 37.2%were statistically significant. Based on his preliminary study, Dr. Seltzer concluded that some jury venires are not representative either of the community or of the jury wheel. He explained that he needed access to the jury records to determine whether these disparities were representative of Superior Court venires generally and to identify the source or sources of any disparities. In further support of the Jury Motion, Gause presented observations made by Honorable Henry F. Greene, the presiding judge in the Gooden case. Judge Greene stated that he had been advised by two court officials familiar with jury selection procedures that it was the practice of the Juror Office to let any juror who is summoned for jury service and for whom [the initially scheduled] date is inconvenient to reschedule at least once, without even having to get the approval of a judge. . . . [I]t has become the overwhelming choice of jurors who wish to reschedule to reschedule for Mondays. The judge was also informed that some socio-economic groups, apparently including professionals, a high percentage of whom were white, have a higher rate of rescheduling than other jurors, which may have resulted in a racial disparity among the jurors reporting on Mondays. In his motion, filed (as we have noted) six days before trial, with a weekend in between, see footnote 1, supra, Gause focused primarily on the alleged underrepresentation of black jurors on Mondays. He asked the trial judge to stay the trial, to set a hearing for the substantive jury motion, and to order the Clerk of the Superior Court to provide to his counsel, for the preceding five years, or for whatever shorter period as to which the requested materials were available, (a) all documents and computer tapes relating to the master jury wheel, (b) all documents and computer tapes containing personal information about all persons summoned for jury service, and (c) all documents relating to the development of the current jury system and plan Gause also requested the court to order the Clerk to make available for interview by his counsel all jury office officials and staff and the staff of any agency designated by the Jury Plan to provide names to the jury office for inclusion in the master jury wheel. When the case was called for trial, the judge orally denied the Jury Motion without hearing from the government. Without objection, the judge treated the motion as having raised solely a claim concerning the racial makeup of jury panels on Mondays. Gause claimed that these panels were disproportionately white because professionals, who tend to be white, ask to be deferred, and that they are then given Mondays to come back to court. The judge ruled that evidence as to Monday venires was not sufficient to demonstrate the existence of a problem with the jury selection process as a whole, and that in any event, the proffered statistical disparity did not establish a prima facie case of substantial under-representation. Although Gause's attorney cited a number of federal authorities, including Test v. United States, 420 U.S. 28, 95 S.Ct. 749, 42 L.Ed.2d 786 (1975) and United States v. Royal, 100 F.3d 1019 (1st Cir.1996), for the proposition that Gause's right to inspect the records was unqualified and that no showing of likelihood of success was required, the judge discerned a difference between  prima facie case and likelihood of success, and he explained that I'm ruling on prima facie case. You haven't made it out. Because the judge denied the Jury Motion on the merits, the request for discovery in support of that motion became moot. On the day (a Tuesday) following the judge's denial of the Jury Motion, fourteen jurors were selected, two of whom were to serve as alternates. Eight of the fourteen (57.1%) were black; six of them (42.9%) were white. The percentage of black persons on the jury was thus slightly above the percentage of black adult citizens of the District (less than 56%, as estimated by Judge Boasberg in his opinion in the Powell case.)