Duren v. Missouri
United States Supreme Court
439 U.S. 357 (1979)
Duren (plaintiff) was convicted by an all-male jury and challenged Missouri's jury-selection system, which let women claim automatic exemption from service at multiple points - on the initial questionnaire, on the jury summons, and even by simply failing to appear. Though women made up 54% of the community's adults per the 1970 census, only 26.7% of those summoned around the time of Duren's jury selection were women, and the actual venires ran roughly 15% female; Duren's 53-person venire pool included only 5 women, and his jury ended up all-male. His statistical evidence went unchallenged; the state court found the level of female representation acceptable and affirmed his conviction.
Whether a state law that causes a distinctive community group to be underrepresented in jury selection, by allowing automatic exemption from service for that group, violates a defendant's right to a jury drawn from a fair cross-section of the community.