Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Consensus, or Census-Con?

Remarkable. You can't make this stuff up....

A Georgia man accused of killing two people used an innovative legal strategy Monday in an attempt to get his murder charges dismissed. Call it the Census defense.

Floyd Wayne Williams Jr. wants the charges dropped — or at least his trial delayed — until the 2010 Census is done so that a jury more accurately reflecting the county's racial makeup can be chosen. Williams, who is black, is to be tried in the south Atlanta's Clayton County, which has seen a surge in African-American residents since the 2000 Census.

Jury pools in Clayton County, like many other jurisdictions, are drawn from voter registration lists, driver's license data and utility records. The list is then balanced by race and gender from the Census to reflect a cross-section of the population.


(nod to the LMM)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i wonder if his lawyer would accept CPS or ACS

Anonymous said...

I doubt it (not if he's a lawyer worth his pay, anyway).

But hopefully the judge making the ruling will accept it.