Utah jury selection upheld

PROVO — A judge ruled Monday against a defense attorney who argues that Utah's jury trials are unconstitutional because Hispanics are underrepresented in the jury pool.

In a 42-page ruling, 4th District Judge Lynn Davis denied a motion to stop jury trials for two of defense attorney Mike Esplin's clients — and potentially all defendants with pending court cases — because of Esplin's concern with the jury-selection system.

Davis' ruling said Esplin did not present enough convincing evidence that Hispanics were being systematically excluded from jury pools. However, he did acknowledge the potential impacts of the jury-pool racial inequity concern, which, if proven to be true, could bring the judicial system to a screeching halt.

"The court notes that the defendants' generic attack/criticism of the Master Jury List is a broad, global attack on the jury selection system for the entire state of Utah," Davis wrote in his ruling. "The statewide implications on the criminal justice system are enormous."

Esplin argued that racially imbalanced juries are constitutional violations of his clients' rights — the right to a jury of their peers.

To that end, Esplin needed to prove that, first, Hispanics are a group of the community and, second, the number of Hispanics in the jury pool is not proportional to the number of Hispanics in the community. Lastly, he also needed to show that Hispanics were being excluded during the jury-selection process.

Davis ruled Esplin failed to present enough evidence for the second and third factors.

Citing case law, Davis ruled that "defendants overestimated the number of Hispanics that are legally available for jury service."

Due to potential issues of "citizenship status and language barriers," as well as the requirement to be a naturalized citizen, Davis wrote, the number of Hispanics in Utah County does not instantly translate into the number of potential jurors.

Although Esplin's two clients are not Hispanic, they gave him permission to file the motions on their cases and agreed to the inevitable delays.

The clients, Daryl Otterson and Jacob Loveless, are awaiting trial on felony cases of sex abuse and aggravated assault charges, respectively.

Esplin said he plans to appeal Davis' ruling because he wants to see more focus dedicated to gathering demographic information about potential jury members.

"(My clients) are being denied due process (rights) because there's no way to obtain the information," he said.

The Master Jury List — kept by the Utah's Administrative Office of the Courts — is used to summon individuals for jury trials.