Statistical Data Insufficient To Establish Underrepresentation of Black Persons on Jury Panel

State v. Griffin, Minn.Ct.App., 5/12/2014.  A jury convicted Mr. Griffin of first and third degree criminal sexual conduct.  During jury selection he complained that the panel had not been drawn from a fair cross section of the community; that the trial court had abused its discretion by admitting evidence of his prior felony convictions for impeachment; and that the trial court had botched the jury instructions on third degree criminal sexual conduct by repeatedly misreading a part of those instructions on the meaning of consent.

Mr. Griffin, who is a black male, complained that the presence of only one black person on the thirty person panel underrepresented black persons as compared to the percentage of black persons in the population of Olmsted County.  That lone black male on a thirty person panel worked out to be 3.3% of the panel.  Mr. Griffin presented information from the 2010 census that showed that 4.8% of Olmsted County was black, while the jury data for roughly two or so years showed that same percentage to be between 1.29% and 1.72%.  Both the trial court and the court of appeals rejected this underrepresentation claim.  In large part, the court of appeals rejects the claim because the census data does not differentiate those persons who are eligible for jury service, which requires that a juror be at least 18 years old, a citizen, and able to communicate in English.  The court also concluded that Mr. Griffin had failed to show a “systematic exclusion” of black persons from the jury pool “over a significant period of time.”  This required proof that the underrepresentation was attributable to the juror selection process and not to an alternative reason such as individuals failing to show up for jury service.  At a minimum, the census data would have to be winnowed down to eliminate persons under age eighteen, and “foreign-born” persons who either are not citizens or are not English speaking.

The trial court permitted introduction of Mr. Griffin’s three prior felonies for impeachment.  Two of the three could be named.  The court of appeals determined that there had been no abuse of discretion in admitting this evidence, the more so because of the rather extensive record made on the “Jones factors.” 

The jury instruction error had to do with the definition of consent.  The written instruction correctly said that consent doesn’t mean the existence of a “prior or current social relationship.”  When the trial court read the instructions, however, it substituted “sexual” for “social” a couple of times but in the end the defense didn’t object.  That left any review under harmless error analysis and the court of appeals said the instructions as a whole has been close enough to be correct.