Is the D.C. Jury Pool Representative?

By Lucy Orgolini [former] - December 21, 2024
Court | Daily Stories | Featured | Suspects |

D.C. Witness discovered in the Tony Mcclam v. United States jury bias case, a convoluted statistical section that raises a core question: Is the Superior Court calling a racially representative sampling of the population to jury duty? 

The original case argues jury verdicts during COVID-19 should be overturned as unconstitutional because juries were racially unrepresentative of the DC population. Specifically, Black jurors were underrepresented relative to the racial makeup of DC.

The brief from the U.S. Attorneys Office (USAO) cites court data, stating of 86,426 new potential jurors sent jury summons, 35.9% are Black in a city that is currently 46.6% Black. According to both the court and the plaintiffs, the Black juror population should be around 44.5%  as noted in the government’s response to a defendant’s motion.

That lower number, 44.5%, means that there is a 8.6% disparity between the percentage of potential jurors who were Black and the number of Black jurors needed to be representative in the District.

D.C. Witness previously reported the Public Defenders Service of the District of Columbia (PDS) commissioned an analysis showing that Black jurors were underrepresented by 10.5 percent relative to the city’s population. 

The numbers are significant because, according to The Center for Juror Studies, most courts have adopted a system where anything over 10% shows de facto systemic discrimination. This questions if the existing DC jury system would qualify as systemically racially biased.  The reduction number from the USAO brings DC under that “systemic” line for discrimination, but the analysis from PDS puts DC over the line. 

When asked about that disparity, the court responded with its new plan for improving the jury selection process.