LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The federal court in eastern Arkansas is reshuffling its district offices, a cost-cutting effort that will draw criminal jury pools from areas closer to where the crime took place.
The realignment of the Eastern District of Arkansas ends a longstanding practice that placed all federal criminal cases under the Little Rock Division, regardless of where the crime occurred. But starting Jan. 1, the cases would be divided among the three new divisions under the Eastern District.
The district, which encompasses 41 counties, will now expand the Little Rock or Central Division from 11 to 19 counties, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported. The move will also increase the Jonesboro or Northern Division from eight to 14 counties and expand the Helena or Delta Division from six to eight counties.
The district had long comprised of five divisions based in Little Rock, Batesville, Helena-West Helena, Jonesboro and Pine Bluff. Each division had operated for decades out of its own courthouse space, with the Little Rock-based judges, rotating shifts as they held court in the four remote areas.
But when the leases on court spaces used in Pine Bluff and Batesville were not renewed in 2017, the offices in those cities closed as part of a national effort to remove minimally-used court spaces and reduce its associated rent and overhead costs.
President Donald Trump signed legislation last week officially establishing where the district’s 41 counties would be realigned within the three divisions.
Defense attorney John Wesley Hall of Little Rock said that he was not sure of the precise racial population numbers to know how the demographics of jury panels might be impacted, “but I believe it will be close to what it is now.”
In 2009, Hall represented a capital-murder suspect in the Western Division of federal court and requested that the jury be selected from Pulaski County only, since that is where the crime occurred and where the case was initially charged. He noted the county’s population was about 38% black, like the defendant, while the population of the entire division was about 18% black when the other 10 county populations were included.
“The government didn’t file the case federally with that intention, but that was the effect,” he said.
U.S. District Clerk James McCormack said a list of prospective jurors reflecting the new division configuration will be implemented in December 2020, when the current arrangement ends.
In the past two years, the district has seen “record criminal filings,” McCormack noted, chiefly because of the Department of Justice’s nationwide focus on prosecuting gun crimes federally, where sentences are usually longer than those imposed in state courts and parole is unavailable.
McCormack added that he has already hired more staff for the Jonesboro Division and is prepared to add more personnel in Helena once the criminal cases begin and they gauge the impact.
The motivation behind divvying up criminal cases across all three divisions, McCormack said, is “an opportunity for full utilization of our spaces” while minimizing travel for jurors.
