Facing a shortage of potential jurors, a Louisiana judge on Wednesday took the unusual move of recruiting random people who happened to be in or near her courthouse.
Attorneys in St. Tammany Parish told Fox 8 they had scarcely ever seen something similar, and that the potential jurors tapped to be in the case weren’t pleased.
“Those people who were dragged in to be jurors were extremely upset about it,” criminal defense attorney Roy Burns told the outlet.
A spokesperson for Judge Ellen Creel declined to comment, citing the ongoing case.
The St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office said deputies rounded up 26 people in about an hour from around the courthouse and its immediate surroundings.
The prospective jurors reportedly included individuals at the courthouse who had been getting their passports.
The judge’s strategy proved divisive.
“I think it was the correct decision of the judge to make under the circumstances of this case,” Doug Freese, of the local district attorney’s office, told Nola.com.
Public defender Jay Carrington, meanwhile, told the outlet the process was unfair, given that juries are supposed to represent a broad cross-section of the local community.
“We don’t believe that individuals that would be picked within and around the courthouse are representative of an actual jury pool,” Carrington said.
Under state law, judges can recruit so-called “tales jurors,” though it’s relatively rare. This allows a judge to “ to summon additional prospective jurors…from among people who are in or around the courthouse when additional jurors are needed to complete jury selection,” Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure Article 785, Paragraph D, says, per Fox 8.
Judge Creel ultimately rejected enough of the newly recruited jurors that she decided to postpone the trial until November.
The case at hand relates to an alleged 2022 rape and has multiple defendants.
A murder case in Washington Parish required similar juror recruitment tactics last year, as did a trial in Baton Rouge in 2021.
Under the U.S. Constitution, all defendants are guaranteed the right to a speedy and public trial before an impartial jury of their peers.
Jury selection can often prove a contentious process, as attorneys seek to eliminate jurors who they allege might have a bias towards those involved in the case.
Convictions, meanwhile, can be thrown out over compromised jurors or poor instructions to juries.
The racial composition of juries has been a substantial area of civil rights law.
