Expert Says Minorities Kept Out of Grand Juries : Ethnicity: Professor testifies that scarcity of Asians on panels suggests they are excluded systematically. Court officials contend that his calculations are faulty.

SANTA ANA — A population expert testified Tuesday that the Orange County Grand Jury selection process discriminates against Asians and other minorities.

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While the county’s minority population has grown over the last decade, the number of Asian representatives on the grand jury has remained roughly the same, said Prof. John R. Weeks of the International Population Center at San Diego State University.

“This disparity is well beyond the realm of chance. It suggests that there is something systematic going on to keep Asians out of the grand jury applicant group,” Weeks testified. Later, he said, “It seems very clear to me there is some systematic exclusion of Asians and other minorities in the collection of applications for the grand jury.”

Weeks was called to testify in Superior Court on Tuesday by defense attorneys in the Stuart A. Tay murder case and other high-profile criminal proceedings. Defense attorneys are seeking to quash indictments handed down by the grand jury, based on a lack of minority representation.

Court and county officials contended Tuesday that Weeks’ calculations are faulty. They said Weeks’ data fails to recognize that many people are ineligible or unable to become grand jurors because of language or economic limitations or for other reasons.

The professor joins a growing chorus of critics. On Saturday, an advisory panel to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights launched a rare fact-finding hearing after complaints by Latino-rights activists about inequities in the government and the criminal justice system in Orange County.

Complaints about the grand jury were prompted in part by outrage when last year’s panel blamed immigrants for a wide array of society’s ills.

But court officials say it is difficult to find volunteers willing to serve on the panel, which is basically a full-time job that pays a maximum of $125 a week.

“There is no discrimination going on here, no systematic attempt to keep anyone off,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Eric W. Snethen.

The hearing resumes Monday. Even if Orange County Superior Court Judge Theodore E. Millard dismisses indictments, prosecutors can refile charges, Snethen said.

But Deputy Public Defender Kevin J. Phillips, who represents a woman who has pleaded not guilty to charges that she murdered a patient during an illegal abortion, said the dispute is far from academic.

“People have a right to be represented by a cross-section of their community,” Phillips said.

Changes are underway. The new grand jury has made a goal of increasing grand jury applications in general and minority applications in particular, and outreach efforts have already met with success, officials said.

Grand jurors must be U.S. citizens over the age of 18 who speak English and have never been convicted of a felony. Grand jurors volunteer or are nominated by judges.

Ideally, the racial makeup of the grand jury applicant pool should roughly reflect the population at large, Weeks testified. Recent U.S. Census Bureau data shows that Asians make up 11.7% of the population in Orange County, while court data shows that Asians made up only 1.3% of the application pool, meaning two of the 157 applicants for the last jury, Weeks said.

Additionally, Weeks said an abnormally high number of applicants who are nominated by judges land on the jury panel. Weeks testified that some jurisdictions cull grand jurors from voter registration rolls and driving records, which can result in greater parity.

But Snethen said outside of court that driving and voter rolls are not always accurate. For example, he said, some minorities who may be counted in census figures are illegal immigrants who do not register to vote.