Friday, May 16, 2003

Why not move Malvo case to Lee County, Virginia?

CrimLaw says in gest that if accused sniper Lee Malvo wants a different venue, why not Lee County, as far away from Fairfax County as you can get in Virginia? Why not indeed? Almost no one in Lee County reads the Washington Post.

Jury selection in Lee County might be less likely to run afoul of Batson v. Kentucky. The 2000 census, as shown here, indicates that the population of Jonesville, the county seat, was 995, with 1 (one) African-American.

When I first discovered this statistic, I asked my grandmother, who lived on her farm outside of Jonesville until she died last year, "Grandma, the federal government says there is one black person in town, do you know who he or she is?" She thought that maybe she did.

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