Judges Pick New Grand Jury With 37% Minority Makeup : Justice: Activists praise efforts to reform the selection process. The 19-member panel is as diverse as current group. Both sets of jurors are expected to scrutinize officials tied to county’s bankruptcy.

Orange County’s Superior Court judges, who had once been under fire for picking grand juries with few minority group members, on Wednesday selected a new grand jury whose ethnic make-up is 37% minority.

Some Latino activists and attorneys who had criticized the county grand jury’s lack of ethnic diversity before last year praised the recruiting efforts of the court, but added that the reforms in the selection process that started two years ago should continue.

John Palacio, director of the Orange County Leadership Program of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said he is pleased with the diversity of the new grand jury, which, like the current panel, includes seven minority members.

“It’s clear that when there’s an extensive effort to reach the minority community, that the community does respond and does want to be a part of the jury.”

Arturo Montez, urban affairs director of the California State League of United Latin American Citizens, noted that the county’s judiciary “is trying to create some reform,” much as county government has done since last year’s unprecedented bankruptcy filing. “But they still have a long way to go,” he added.

The 1996-1997 grand jury, which will be formally sworn in on Jan. 2, consists of 13 men and six women whose average age is 63. The jury includes 12 whites, two Asian Americans, four Latinos and one African American. They were chosen from a pool of 163 county residents who applied to serve on the panel.

The current grand jury, whose term expires when the new jury takes over, consists of 12 men and seven women whose average age is 60. The current jury includes two Asian Americans, two African Americans and three Latinos.

The current grand jury, and the one to be sworn in early next year, are the only ones of the last seven panels in Orange County to include jurors of Asian descent.

Defense attorney Marshall M. Schulman of Costa Mesa lauded the recruitment process that changed that glaring omission.

“It seems that the selection process is coming into the 21st Century,” said Schulman, who was one of a group of defense attorneys in the county who charged that Asians have been systematically excluded from serving on the grand jury. “It just proves that they could get Asians [to serve on the jury] if they wanted to.”

The recruitment efforts of the Orange County Superior Court and Grand Jury Assn. included sending out flyers to libraries, churches, civic groups, chambers of commerce and the city halls of all 31 of the county’s municipalities. Judges and association members also met with minority organizations to encourage their members to apply, said Pat Hill, assistant executive officer for court operations.

This 19-member grand jury, which is an independent panel of citizens, will have its work cut out for it. Aside from its usual responsibilities of bringing indictments against people accused of crimes, the panel also acts as a government watchdog, scrutinizing the actions of local government agencies. In coming months, much of the panel’s work will involve dealing with the complex legal issues arising from the county’s bankruptcy, a process begun by the current grand jury.

In May, the Board of Supervisors passed a resolution extending the current panel’s usual 12-month term to 18 months, so the jurors could complete their inquiry into the roles of county officials in the bankruptcy debacle.

It is expected that the 1996-1997 panel, which will also serve an 18-month term, will decide whether individuals or companies outside of local government will face criminal charges in connection with the bankruptcy.

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The New Grand Jury

The Orange County Superior Court announced Wednesday that 19 county residents have been selected to serve on the 1996-1997 Orange County Grand Jury, whose term begins Jan. 2.

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Race/ Name Residence ethnicity Age John Beddow Trabuco Canyon White 57 Lloyd Chandler Orange Black 61 Richard Fritzler Fountain Valley White 59 Leonard Gutmann Yorba Linda White 76 Patricia Hitchcock Newport Beach White 55 Dennis Keesee Laguna Niguel Latino 63 Henry Legere Los Alamitos White 65 Kingdon Lou Tustin Asian 72 George MacLaren Anaheim White 71 Barbara McDowell Huntington Beach White 67 Kenneth Moe Anaheim White 68 Rose Moreno Huntington Beach Asian 59 Patricia Murray Laguna Beach White 69 Hector Navarrette Garden Grove Latino 65 Albert Ortega Lake Forest Latino 62 Jose Quiros Irvine Latino 57 Mary Ann Salamida Huntington Beach White 60 Francesca Warburton Yorba Linda White 53 Donald Wecker Fountain Valley White 66

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Source: Orange County Superior Court