February 13, 2008
The Detroit News
DETROIT -- Days after Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick reiterated complaints about the racial makeup of juries in Wayne County Circuit Court, activists gathered Tuesday to criticize the state's top court for failing to fix what they claim is a broken system.
The Circuit Court is working on reforms to attract more minorities to juries. It has drawn flack -- and legal challenges -- because 26 percent of jurors are black, even though they comprise 41 percent of the county's 2 million residents. The Michigan Supreme Court waded into the issue Friday but didn't directly address whether the lack of diversity violates constitutional guarantees to trial by juries of peers.
"Lawyers, labor, religious and civil rights leaders all have been at odds with what we see as a biased system," said Ron Scott, executive director of the Committee to Restore Justice, who joined activists and union leaders who gathered Tuesday to protest the ruling.
Kilpatrick took up the issue last fall, after a mostly suburban jury of 11 whites and one African-American ruled in favor of police officers who filed a whistle-blower suit alleging retaliation for investigating allegations of misdeeds by the mayor and his staff.
The verdict led to an $8.4 million settlement that has ignited the biggest scandal of Kilpatrick's career. The settlement kept secret text messages that appeared to reveal a sexual relationship with a staffer that the mayor denied under oath.
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