Whites over-represented in NY jury pools: study

By Edith Honan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Jury pools in Manhattan courts do not reflect the New York borough's diversity, with whites appearing in numbers disproportionate to their share of the population, a study released on Wednesday found.

The report by the government watchdog group Citizen Action said Asians, blacks and Hispanics living in Manhattan are less likely than whites to show up for jury duty.

"It is a basic principle of our justice system that juries in civil and criminal courts should represent the racial and ethnic composition of the community," said Pamela Bennett, the New York City director of Citizen Action.

"It is truly shocking that we still don't have a justice system that ensures fair representation of people of color and Hispanics," she said.

Only about half of Manhattan's population is white, but three in four people who appear for jury duty are white, the report said.

Hispanics, who make up 27 percent of the overall population, are the most under-represented group in jury pools, accounting for about one in 16 people, it said.

Blacks make up 17 percent of the population, but just one in 10 appears in the pool, while Asians -- 10 percent of the population -- appear at a rate of one in 16.

Members of Citizen Action observed and recorded the race of 14,429 people who appeared in Manhattan juror assembly rooms from November 2006 through February this year.

Potential jurors were not asked to identify their racial group and the study did not look at the race of those who were chosen to serve on a jury.

Citizen Action said two possible reasons for the under-representation are that blacks and Hispanics change addresses more often than whites and are more likely to skip jury duty because they cannot arrange for child care.

New York County Clerk Norman Goodman, who oversees jury selection, said the city strives for fairness and has a system in place to reach out to potential jurors who fail to appear in court.

"The jury pool is made up of a fair and representative cross-section of the community, to the extent that we can do it by computer," he said.