Question

A court holds jurisdiction over five counties, and the juries are required to be made up in a representative manner from the eligible populations of these five counties. An investigator notices that the county where she lives has 14% of the total population of the five counties eligible for jury duty, yet records reveal that over the past five years only 122 out of the 1386 jurors used by the court reside in her county. Do you feel that this constitutes reasonable evidence that the jurors are not being randomly selected from the total population

Answer 1

Yes.

I feel that since only about 9% of the jurors are being appointed from the county, instead of the more representative 14%, this constitutes reasonable evidence that the jurors are not being randomly selected from the total population.

Explanation:

a) Data and Calculations:

County population proportion = 14%

This implies that the country is supposed to have at least 1,386 * 14% = 194 of the jurors used by the court.

Evidence from records show that the county has only 122 of 1,386 = 9% (122/1,386)

This means that about 72 (194 - 122) jurors are not being appointed from the county.

And 72 represents about 5% of 1,386 (72/1,386). This number is more than half of those being appointed from the county or more than 50% or precisely 59%.

Therefore, this constitutes reasonable evidence that the jurors are not being randomly selected from the total population. The selection is not representative of the population characteristics.