Judge Upholds Jury System for O.C. Court : Jurisprudence: Ruling states that the process for selecting federal jurors does not unfairly exclude blacks.

Defense attorneys who alleged that a new jury selection process for Santa Ana federal court unfairly excludes blacks lost their bid to overturn the policy Monday when a judge decided the system 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, lead 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 so low, he said, the situation in Santa Ana is worse than that found in a precedent-setting case that established criteria for adequate minority representation on federal juries.

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, making it much harder, he says, for African-Americans to be selected.

“The jury pool we saw shows the new system doesn’t work correctly,” Steward said. “We had one black in a pool of 38. There was a very high possibility of getting an all-white jury. . . . This would be like going back to the days of the Old South, when blacks were tried by all-white juries.”

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.

When the demographics of the Santa Ana division are compared to its jury pool, the disparity, Stotler said, does not rise to the level of a constitutional violation. At most, she noted, there is a 1.1% difference.

Together, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties are 4.4% black, according to 1990 U.S. Census data, while the entire, seven-county central court district is 7.8% black.

Under case law, Stotler said, Steward was wrong to compare the demographics of the entire central district, which has a far higher proportion of blacks, to the jury pools of the Santa Ana division.

In addition, Stotler said Steward presented no proof of intentional discrimination in the creation of the new jury selection procedures--one of the legal criteria to show that Cannady’s rights were violated.

The challenge to the new jury selection process has been opposed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office on the grounds that blacks are not being deliberately excluded from jury pools and the numbers called for service adequately reflect the percentage of blacks in the community.

“The system is proper and legal,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. J. Daniel McCurrie. “The defense insinuates that the court, Congress and the clerk’s office made a mistake. There is no evidence that we are going back to the Old South. If anything, the court, the clerk and Congress should be complimented for setting up a neutral, objective system.”

Steward said Monday he will appeal the jury issue depending on the result of Cannady’s trial, which is set for Nov. 30. He predicted that the selection process will end up before a federal appellate court soon. Until then, Steward said, his office will monitor the racial makeup of jury pools for other cases at the Santa Ana courthouse.

Other defense attorneys handling criminal cases at the Santa Ana courthouse have said they will oppose the jury changes as their cases come up for trial.