Justices Reject Fair-Cross-Section Claim Without Adopting Underrepresentation Test

A Michigan court did not unreasonably apply federal law concerning the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of a trial by jurors drawn from a fair cross-section of the community when it denied relief to a federal habeas corpus petitioner who challenged a local juror-selection process that the jurisdiction later abandoned due to concerns about its constitutionality, the U.S. Supreme Court decided March 30. The court found insufficient evidence that African Americans were systematically excluded from jury pools in the county, which the petitioner had to prove to establish a fair-cross-section violation. Along the way, the court declined to give its blessing to ...