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undivided, the District’s Jury Plan can divide territorially in the interests of “an impartial trial, of
economy and of lessening the burden of attendance.” United States v. Gottfried, 165 F.2d 360,
364 (2d Cir. 1948); see Jury Plan. Accordingly, the rationale justifying this territorial division is
based on administrative feasibility. See Allen, 2021 WL 431458, at *1,
With this background in mind, the legal issue at hand becomes straightforward. The
Second Circuit’s decision in United States v. Bahna, 68 F.3d 19 (2d Cir. 1995), frames the
inquiry and supplies its answer. In Bahna, a defendant was indicted, tried, and convicted of
various narcotics crimes in the Eastern District of New York’s Brooklyn courthouse. /d. at 20.
But following his initial trial, the defendant was granted a new trial. Id. Saliently, the
defendant’s second trial occurred before a different judge and in a different venue—the Eastern
District’s Uniondale courthouse.> Id.
Of concern here, the defendant raised a fair cross-section challenge following his second
conviction. Id, at 23-24. Under the Eastern District’s jury plan, the Brooklyn courthouse drew
jurors from all of the counties within the Eastern District, while the Uniondale courthouse only
drew from Nassau and Suffolk counties. See id. at 24. Accordingly, the defendant argued that
the Uniondale courthouse’s jury wheel underrepresented African American and Hispanic
American jurors in comparison to their demographics in the relevant community—which he
alleged to be all of the counties making up the Eastern District. Id.
The Second Circuit, however, rejected that reasoning and held that, “Where a jury venire
is drawn from a properly designated division, we look to that division to see whether there has
5 The trial court stated that the reason for the transfer “was to accommodate trial congestion in
the court’s calendar during a period of judicial emergency in the Eastern District.” Soares v.
United States, 66 F. Supp. 2d 391, 397 (E.D.N.Y. 1999).
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