New Jury Pool System Is Upheld : Judiciary: Defense attorneys had argued that new divisions for Santa Ana court reduced the chances of racially representative juries for black clients. Judge rules process is fair.

Defense attorneys who alleged that a new jury selection process for Santa Ana federal court unfairly excluded blacks lost their bid to overturn the policy Monday when a judge decided the process could produce jury pools reflecting the community’s racial makeup.

U.S. District Judge Alicemarie H. Stotler, who heard arguments on the issue, ruled that the attorneys had “failed to make a showing that African-Americans are not fairly and reasonably represented in the Southern Division jury pool.

“The new method is well thought out, and a fair system,” she said.

Prospective jurors for the small U.S. courthouse here used to be randomly selected from the seven counties that make up the federal court system’s central district of California--Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura.

But, in January, Congress created three court divisions within the central district--the Santa Ana, Los Angeles and Riverside divisions--clearing the way for new jury selection procedures that reduced the geographical areas from which jury pools are drawn. In Santa Ana, the change meant jurors would now be selected only from Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, which have proportionately fewer blacks than Los Angeles.

After the new jury selection process took effect in October, a group of Orange County defense attorneys, led by the local federal public defender’s office, challenged the new procedures, saying minority defendants might be denied their constitutional right to judgment by a jury of their peers.

The challenge resulted in a mistrial for Todd Eugene Cannady, a black man, after the jury pool selected for his bank robbery case turned out to be almost exclusively white. A second case involving three Latinos accused of cocaine possession was postponed until the jury question could be resolved.

During arguments before Stotler on Monday, federal Assistant Public Defender H. Dean Steward contended that the method for creating jury pools has greatly reduced the chances of blacks being called for service at the Santa Ana courthouse.

Selecting potential jurors from only Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, he said, would deny his client the right to be judged by a cross-section of the community as guaranteed by the equal protection clause of the Constitution.

The prospect of blacks being selected is lower in Santa Ana than that found in a precedent-setting case that established criteria for adequate minority representation on federal juries, he said.

According to Steward’s figures, the new jury selection method has resulted in a loss of almost 1 million blacks that could be considered for jury service in Santa Ana.

But Stotler said defendants do not have a constitutional right to have jurors selected from the entire central district if the court has been officially deemed a division. A key requirement, she said, is that jury pools must reflect the racial makeup of the divisions from which the potential jurors are drawn.