Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2006 | 8:03 a.m.
The state Supreme Court granted a man a new trial last week, citing articles written by the Las Vegas Sun to raise questions about whether the methods used to select potential jurors "adequately represents the diverse population of Clark County."
The high court granted Gary Williams, who was convicted of battery, a new trial, ruling that District Judge Stephen Huffaker erred in the jury selection process during Williams' 2003 trial. The court also said the judge erred by allowing Williams' juvenile conviction for aggravated robbery to be used in the trial.
During jury selection, Huffaker called in three different jury pools to try to get more diversity -- Williams, who is black, was charged with attempted murder for his actions in a fight in which he said he was called a racial slur.
Justice Robert Rose, who was joined in his opinion by Justices Michael Douglas and Ron Parraguirre, said that the judge erred in dismissing the second jury pool based on a prosecution objection that the process wasn't random. Rose noted that there was no evidence that the jury panel wasn't randomly selected.
Still, the justices said, the fact that three jury pools were called indicated the health of the jury selection system in Clark County. But Rose noted that "several articles in the Las Vegas Sun indicate problems in the jury selection process."
The county selects potential jurors from the lists of people who have driver's licenses or state identification cards. In an article published in the Sun in October, critics said the system creates juror pools that fail to fully reflect the diversity of the county's population.
Critics say the county should draw on other lists, saying that not all people drive or have identification cards. Critics contend that many people who are poor move more and are in most cases less apt to keep their addresses current with the DMV. The result is that people from lower socio-economic levels are not being adequately represented, critics say.
"The articles question whether the jury selection process adequately represents the diverse population of Clark County," Rose wrote. "While we have no data before us to indicate otherwise, the articles indicate that the jury selection process may not represent an adequate cross section of the community."
As a result of the criticism and questions raised in the Sun, court officials have begun working with Nevada Power Co. in an effort to use its customer list in juror pool selection.
Although Rose says in the ruling that the jury commissioner is correct in saying that "a jury of one's peers is simply a 'randomly selected cross section of the members of the community' " the justice suggested the commissioner should know the makeup of the community and "should compare this with the makeup of the lists used in the jury selection process and the resulting jury pool."
Rose went on to say the commissioner "should strive to create lists of prospective jurors that represent an accurate cross section of the community."
In the footnotes of the Williams ruling, Jones wrote that although the high court wouldn't say Clark County's current juror pool selection system is unconstitutional "an assertion that they provide juries comprising a fair cross section of the community is a mere speculation."
No date for Williams' new trial has been scheduled.
Matt Pordum can be reached at 474-7406 or at [email protected].
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