State v. Lilly

The Supreme Court conditionally affirmed Defendant's conviction for aiding and abetting a bank robbery and remanded for further consideration of Defendant's claim that his jury was not drawn from a fair cross section of the community, in violation of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 10 of the Iowa Constitution, holding that further consideration of this claim was warranted.Defendant, an African-American, was convicted following a trial by a jury that contained no African-Americans. Further, there were no African-Americans in the jury venire that reported that day. On appeal, Defendant argued that the racial composition of the jury pool violated his rights to an impartial jury under both the federal and the state constitution. The Supreme Court held that the typical jury management practices can support a systematic exclusion claim under the framework established in State v. Plain, 898 N.W.2d 801 (Iowa 2017), and Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357 (1979), where the evidence shows one or more of those practices have produced underrepresentation of a minority group, and this case will be remanded to give Defendant a further opportunity to develop his fair-cross-section claim. View "State v. Lilly" on Justia Law