A federal court denied an American Indian prisoner habeas claim recently on grounds that he could not support his Batson argument with any evidence. Batson being the case that requires a jury of one’s peers. As anyone in Indian country knows, rarely if ever (I posit virtually never) will an American Indian being prosecuted in federal court be tried by a jury that includes even one other American Indian (articles by Doyle/Eid and Washburn).
In this order (US v Bordeaux), the court rejects claims that American Indians even in South Dakota have a Batson claim:
There can be little doubt that Native Americans constitute a distinctive group in South Dakota. The record is undeveloped as to the second prong although there was at least one Native American in the venire; the removal of juror F.C. was the subject of Bordeaux’s Batson challenge. But even if Bordeaux could establish that the representation of Native Americans in the venire was not fair and reasonable, he has failed to show that Native Americans are systematically excluded. The District of South Dakota’s Plan for the Random Selection of Grand and Petit Jurors calls for potential jurors to be called exclusively from a list of registered voters provided by the South Dakota Secretary of State. See Docket No. 7-1. The Eighth Circuit has consistently upheld the use of voter registration lists to select jury pools. Morin, 338 F.3d at 844; Sanchez, 156 F.3d at 879. Bordeaux has presented no evidence whatsoever that Native Americans living in South Dakota face obstacles in the voter registration process. Although Bordeaux argues the lack of Native Americans in the jury pool proves his case, simple statistical disparities between the number of Native Americans represented in the general population and jury pools do not by themselves establish systematic exclusion. Sanchez, 156 F.3d at 879.
There is some evidence in the continuing cases in South Dakota of Voting Rights Act violations (see Laughlin McDonald’s fine American Indians and the Fight for Equal Voting Rights, ch. 5). Maybe the ACLU Voting Rights Project and the South Dakota public/appellate defenders should get together. Ah, they probably already are.
Turtle Talk 