Minorities Underrepresented in Jury Pools, Study Says

A report released yesterday by the New York State Office of Court Administration found that African-Americans and Hispanics were under-represented in the jury pools of some jurisdictions in the state.

Back in 2006, Citizen Action-New York had questioned whether minorities are severely under-represented in civil jury pools, and released their own findings.

With this information, the state passed the Jury Pool Fair Representation Act last year, co-sponsored by Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, which requires the recording of jury pool demographic data in order to determine whether jurors in the state represent the community.

OCA studied these findings over a year and found a discrepancy between jury pool members who identified as African-American or Hispanic and their actual representation in the general population.

For example, the study found that in Queens, the representation of Hispanics in jury pools was 35 percent lower than their representation in the general population. In Manhattan, Hispanics were underrepresented by 47 percent. 

“Both the U.S. Constitution and New York state's Constitution has given New Yorkers accused of a crime an inviolable right to a trial by a jury of one's peers.  The hard data in the OCA study is deeply disturbing and shows that the court system in New York City is not working hard enough to bring in peers as diverse as the communities that Assemblyman Lancman and I serve,” said Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, in a statement.