Editorial: Jury pools are shallow

Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2005 | 8:49 a.m.

Defense attorneys say that juries in Clark County District Court are consistently underrepresented by minorities and people with low incomes. The Nevada Supreme Court is aware of the problem and has recommended that court administrators broaden their pool of potential jurors. If the problem is not resolved, there is a danger that one day a verdict will be overturned, which could lead to a succession of overturned verdicts.

This issue revolves around rulings in previous court cases stating that a defendant has the right to be judged by a jury of his peers. The rulings date from 1880, when the U.S. Supreme Court (Strauder v. West Virginia) ruled that barring racial and ethnic groups from juries violates a defendant's rights under the equal-protection provision of the 14th Amendment. Since that decision, the courts have ruled extensively that a jury's makeup should be representative of the whole community.

Clark County court officials rely on a presumed statistic when defending their system of assuring diverse juries. They say at least 85 percent of the county's adult population is called up for juries as the result of their system of issuing summonses to people registered with the Department of Motor Vehicles. But there are two glaring contradictions to that presumption, as pointed out by Las Vegas Sun reporter Matt Pordum in a story on Sunday.

One, District Court does not keep any demographic records about its jury pools, and therefore there is no way to prove that the summonses reach 85 percent of the area population. Additionally, there is no way to prove that the juries chosen represent the community's diversity.

And two, a glance in the direction of any jury will instantly reveal an imbalance. "Given the amount of diversity in the population, I've never seen more all-white juries in my years of practicing law than I have here in Clark County," Public Defender Phil Kohn told Pordum.

Kohn has a standing order to all of the attorneys in his department to raise the issue of jury makeup in all death-penalty cases that go against his defendants. Sooner or later a high-profile case will be overturned and much attention will be directed at the system of selecting jurors, he said.

The court system should start reforming its selection process by using more than one source for names. The current method automatically excludes from juries all people who do not have a driver's license. In addition to the DMV list, it should also consider using lists compiled by the state Welfare Division, area utilities, the county registrar and assessor's offices, the School District and other agencies.

Expanding the court's database would surely expand and diversify its jury pools -- an expansion that should be formally charted and not presumed.