Vermont’s two federal judges have ruled that the method of selecting jurors for federal court in Vermont is not racially biased.
Judges Garvan Murtha and William Sessions have rejected arguments made by 14 criminal defendants who had claimed in a lawsuit that the process to select juries excluded minorities so the charges against them should be dismissed.
The judges said they found no evidence that the method was discriminatory, pointing out that Vermont’s population is 97 percent white. But they did say that the method of drawing names randomly from voter registration lists should be improved to expand the pool jurors.