
          STACKING THE JURY IN GEORGIA

     We have been informed by an alert correspondent of a likely 
jury-rigging scheme in south Georgia.  It may be that variants of 
this kind of sleazy operation are common throughout the country.  
If you are rarely or never called for jury duty despite being 
registered to vote and licensed to drive, perhaps a little 
digging around might yield some interesting information.  If and 
when jury-rigging can be identified in a local judicial district, 
the press might be very interested in what you have uncovered.  
Such information could be of great utility in promoting awareness 
of FIJA, and could be used to rally excluded groups around the 
issue of jury rights.

     In Georgia, it appears that the local legal establishment 
draws names for the jury pool from voters who have voted in the 
Republican primary election.  It is known that some people are 
selected repeatedly in short periods of time, while others are 
seldom selected--once in twenty years, for instance. In addition, 
a secret list of jurors who have given guilty verdicts in the 
past is maintained by the District Attorney.  A local defense 
attorney petitioned the court for a copy of that list because it 
gave the D.A. an unfair advantage during jury selection, but the 
judge refused to require the D.A. to release the list.

     The question, of course, is are people being selected over 
and over again for "hanging juries"?  The D.A. could build an 
impressive conviction record by doing this, but defendants' 
rights to a fair trial are being shredded! 

     A local attorney points out that conviction-prone jurors are 
the kind of people insurance companies love to have hear 
personal-injury cases, and they tend to side with polluters 
against environmentalists, and with the establishment against 
civil rights plaintiffs.  The Jury Commission is scrambling to 
cover its tracks now that questions have been raised.
