Everyman on Juries

Lyndon Johnson now has before him for signature a law just passed by House and Senate requiring that all federal juries be picked at random from rolls that fully reflect "a fair cross section of the community" without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin or economic status. Since Johnson requested the bill, there is little doubt that he will sign it most happily.

To many, it may seem that there is no need for such a law. But in fact, most juries in the U.S. are not currently chosen in accordance with the bill's requirements. This is a product not only of exclusion of Negroes in the South and elsewhere. It is also due to the fact that a majority of federal courts still use a "key man" system whereby leading citizens are asked to provide the names of those others in the communi ty who are worthy of serving on juries. This tends to limit jury panels to the well educated and socially acceptable. Grand juries are similarly chosen.

Under the new law, these practices will go out. Some judges and lawyers have been in opposition on the grounds that the technical nature of many cases puts them beyond the understanding of the average or below-average intelligence. Nonetheless, the new rules impose only a minimum test of literacy and knowledge of English--the idea apparently being that the jury system has long rested its ultimate faith in man's common sense, a quality that is not necessarily limited to the educated.

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