Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
Table of Contents
State v. Gettys, 243 N.C. App. 590 (Oct. 20, 2015)
The trial court did not err by denying the defendant’s motion to strike the jury venire. The defendant alleged that his venire was racially disproportionate to the demographics of Mecklenburg County, where he was tried, and therefore deprived him of his constitutional right to a jury of his peers. The court began by noting that the fact that a single venire that fails to proportionately represent a cross-section of the community does not constitute systematic exclusion. Rather, systematic exclusion occurs when a procedure in the venire selection process consistently yields non-representative venires. Here, the defendant argued that Mecklenburg County’s computer program, Jury Manager, generated a racially disproportionate venire and thus deprived him of a jury of his peers. Although the defendant asserted that there was a disparity in the venire, he conceded the absence of systematic exclusion and thus his claim must fail.