After dismissing four more jurors Monday for failing to heed the judge's order to avoid all media, the next round of jury selection in the O.J. Simpson murder trial starts Wednesday with a jury pool that is at least 60 percent black.
Simpson's defense team and legal experts say the number of blacks that have survived this round of questioning is a startling statistic that should favor the former football star."You'd have to say it is a positive factor for the defense," said Simpson's jury consultant Jo Ellan Dimitrius. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out."
Of the 43 jurors remaining in the pool, 26 are black and 10 are white.
In contrast, 74.3 percent of the whites summoned in the first panel of 94 prospective jurors have either been dismissed or were dropped from the panel for various reasons, statistics show.
"I think they (black panelists) follow orders better," said Simpson attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr., noting that more white jury prospects have been removed for watching television, reading newspapers or talking about the case.
University of Southern California law professor Erwin Chemerinsky said that the numbers of potential black jurors will help Simpson, who is black, particularly as the defense tries to discredit the Los Angeles Police Department's investigation during the course of the trial.
"All of the opinion polls have shown that blacks are much more likely than whites to believe O.J. Simpson is innocent," Chem-er-in-sky said. "And because of the history of racism in law enforcement, blacks are more likely to be suspicious of police than whites. Since the core of the defense strategy seems to be to put the police on trial, having a substantial African-American representation on the jury can help the defense."
The first phase of jury selection is expected to end this morning when attorneys resume questioning a 27-year-old black woman from the Los Angeles-area city of Monterey Park. If she is kept on the panel, it will only add to the number of blacks eligible to serve on the high-profile case.
"If I were the defense, I'd be dancing in the street," said Ed Butler, a University of California, Riverside sociology professor and jury consultant who worked on the McMartin Pre-School case.
"This will be an extremely unusual jury if it continues going the way it is going," Butler said. "Most juries are predominantly white, middle class, higher income, with a higher education level."
Dimitrius said that it the number of blacks remaining is twice as high as normal.
"Usually it doesn't get higher than 30 percent," she said.