In In Re US, No. 05-2358, the court concludes that the judge needed to follow the jury-selection statute (28 U.S.C. §§ 1863) rather than just directing the jury commissioner to send out new jury summons to the same zipcode as returned ones:
No one is entitled automatically to be tried by a jury of persons comprised of his or her own race, religion or gender.... Yet there is assuredly cause for concern, as this court said six years ago... where African American defendants have been indicted for major crimes, and the proportion of blacks who return jury questionnaires is half the percentage to be expected from their presence in the division of the district concerned. The district court has always been free to revise its jury plan in
compliance with the statute.
Update: Capital Defense Weekly has scathing commentary here.
See our earlier coverage here, here, here, here, here, and here.
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