Jan. 31, 2012

Judges:

Please consider our submission for the freedom of information award.

Our reporters got two tips that told us that Texas grand jury proceedings needed a closer look.

The first tip: Two grand jury members with ties to Denton City Hall had been asked to leave theroom when a case against a frequent critic of city politics came up.

The second: Many Denton political leaders had seen a copy of the indictment before it waspublic.

We learned that only Texas and California continue to rely on a relic of the English grand jurysystem, known as key-man. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1977 that the key-man systemwas susceptible to abuse. The rest of the nation’s state and federal courts abandoned it, butmost Texas judges continue to “pick-a-pal” when impaneling a grand jury.

We dug deep and found dozens of connections between the Denton County grand jury and thealleged victim of the crime. Denton Mayor Mark Burroughs alleged that Robert Clifton asked forpayment to abandon the mayor’s race. The grand jury indicted Clifton on a felony briberycharge.

The day after the story ran, the district attorney’s office dropped the felony charge and Cliftonpleaded guilty to a misdemeanor related to his application for the ballot. In January, an opinionpiece in “The Texas Prosecutor,” the journal of Texas District and County Attorneys Association,cited our story in an in-depth examination of the problems of key-man.

Pursuing this story involved pushing for the lists of grand jurors for several sessions. It alsoinvolved probing the social network of many community leaders. After the story ran, the mayor’slaw partner issued a demand letter to retain records related to story’s production, along with athreat of legal action that never materialized. But many readers, including many communityleaders, said the story sparked a conversation that has been long overdue and one that couldfinally loosen the grip of another vestige of Jim Crow-era politics in Texas.

We are proud to submit this to your freedom of information category and thank you for yourconsideration.

Sincerely,

Matthew Zabelcity editor

Denton Record-ChronicleVol. 108, No. 75 / 42 pages, 4 sections Sunday, October 16, 2011 Denton, Texas One dollar

An edition of The Dallas Morning News DentonRC.com

TODAYIN DENTON

SunnyHigh: 88Low: 59

Weather report, 2A

ARTS & COMMUNITY 4DBUSINESS 1DCLASSIFIED 4CCOUPLES 6DCROSSWORD 3DDEAR ABBY 3DDEATHS 19AOPINION 18AREAL ESTATE 1CSPORTS 1BTELEVISION 17AWEATHER 2A

FIND IT INSIDE

. . . . . . . .7 8 3 1 9 7 0 0 0 2 1 2

I say it all the time. Everytime I see it sitting thereat the train platform, alltwo cars of it, I tell it thatI love it.

Page 18A

OPINION

DonnaFielder

Coupons &savings of

197

INSIDE

Not in all areas

$

Between the remake ofthe 1984 film musicalFootloose, and Rock ofAges, the Broadwaysmash scored with pop-rock hits from the ’80s,only one question begsasking: What in the nameof Night Ranger is goingon here? Page 4D

INSIDE ARTS

Grand jury system questioned

By Lowell Brown

and Peggy Heinkel-WolfeStaff Writers

The grand jury that indicted a manwho often criticizes local governmenthad multiple ties to City Hall and tothe victim of the alleged crime, aDenton Record-Chronicle investiga-tion found.

Bob Clifton, a retired businessman,once branded a vexatious litigant by avisiting judge after he filed four law-suits against the city in two years,stands accused of asking Mayor MarkBurroughs to pay him to abandon the2010 mayor’s race.

One grand jury member whoindicted Clifton heads a city depart-ment.

One was a former mayor.One served on Burroughs’ re-elec-

tion committee.Four had donated to at least one of

Burroughs’ mayoral campaigns.

And despite a state law meant toensure that grand juries reflect thecounty’s demographic and geographicmakeup, most members of the grandjury that indicted Clifton and 600other people last year were whitemales, residents of Denton, or both.More than 530,000 people live else-where in Denton County, yet 11 of the12 grand jurors live in Denton,Corinth and Argyle — cities with acombined population of less than137,000. Women and racial minori-ties were also underrepresented.

The Record-Chronicle investigated

the grand jury array after reportingthat two members — former MayorPerry McNeill and David Gosdin,husband of the current mayor protem, Pete Kamp — were asked by thedistrict attorney to abstain becausetheir names would come up as part ofthe evidence in the case.

The findings raise questions aboutthe fairness of grand jury selectionunder the “key-man” system, a meth-od used throughout much of Texaswhereby an appointed commission —

‘Pick-a-pal’ selectionprocess stacks groupwith political players

INSIDEGraphic connecting grand jurors to local groups,

politicians and campaigns/5A

Grand jurors’ demographics/5A

History of the grand jury system/6A

ON DENTONRC.COMCampaign finance reports for Mark Burroughs,

Pete Kamp and James King

Documents relating to campaign committees forBurroughs and Kamp, potential grand jurors and

grand jury commissionersSee GRAND JURY on 4A

Warm regards

Denton Record-Chronicle/David Minton

GracePointe Church members organize piles of donated coats and jack-

ets to be given away Saturday at the Denton church.

The next Bieber?

Young performersees big dreamsbecome reality TV

Courtesy photos

Brandon Michael, 11, of Corinth, is competing in the reality show Majors and Minors on

kids network The Hub. RIGHT: The contestants pose with singer Leona Lewis.

By Britney TaborStaff Writer

With a big personalityand a smile tomatch, an 11-year-

old from Corinth is sharing hislove of music and dance withTV viewers each week on thereality series Majors andMinors, airing on kids channelThe Hub.

Brandon Michael is one of 12contestants on the series vyingfor the chance at a recordingcontract and a cross-countrylive concert tour. Unlike othersimilar shows, Majors andMinors doesn’t eliminate con-testants.

The 12 participants — eightgirls and four boys, ages 10 to16 — are mentored by therecording industry’s top music

producers, songwriters, vocalcoaches and well-known musicartists including Brandy, AvrilLavigne, Jordin Sparks, AdamLambert and OneRepublic’sRyan Tedder. Over 15 weeks,the cast learns to write and singoriginal songs.

Brandon was selected for theshow during a nationwidesearch — conducted onlineand in open casting calls —that drew 40,000 hopefuls.

“When I found out I was onMajor and Minors … I was like‘Oh my gosh. Is this real life?’”he said. “I was just jumping upand down, and I was so excited.I was so jittery.”

Brandon explained his pas-sion for performing in a video

Two Denton menaspire to presidency

By Bj Lewis Staff Writer

If Republican voters find themselvesdissatisfied with the leading presidentialcontenders, they have more than 200other possible candidates to choose from.

The long shot at getting on the electionballot has not stopped a number of menand women, including two men fromDenton County, Republicans HaroldHeard and Jeff Barea. But it takes a lotmore than making a bold bid and verbaldeclaration to become a contender.

According to the Federal Election

Committee’s website, in order to becomean official candidate, a person must meetits requirement to exceed $5,000 ineither contributions or money spent forcampaign activity. The candidate couldalso give consent to another person to doso on their behalf.

As of Friday, the list of candidatestotaled 248 — a number that changesdaily — and included the mainstreamnames as well as a host of others fromacross the country who claim member-ship to a variety of parties.

Beyond qualifying with the FEC, anyperson eligible to hold the office mayqualify to participate in each state’s pri-mary by filing with the state party office.In Texas, that requires gathering signed

See PRESIDENCY on 6A

See PERFORMER on 19A

Spurning ‘unknown’ label, GOP hopefuls try for highest office in U.S.

not random selection — deter-mines who sits on grand juries.The U.S. Supreme Court has

long held the key-man systemis constitutional but vulnerableto abuse. Court rulings andacademic studies have foundthe system tends to favor thepowerful and disenfranchiseracial minorities, the poor,women and the young. Thosefactors led most states and thefederal government to abandonthe system in favor of a morerandom process.“The big disadvantage of the

key-man system is the disen-franchisement of a large sec-tion of the population,” saidGreg Hurley, an analyst withthe Center for Jury Studies,part of the National Center forState Courts, a nonprofit courtimprovement organization.“Due to that, there have been anumber of cases that struck itdown in many jurisdictions.”Only Texas and California

still use a key-man system toselect grand juries, Hurley said.In Texas, judges can decide

between the two methods.District Judge L. Dee Shipman,who presided over the grandjury that indicted Clifton, saidboth methods have pros andcons.The commission system is

the primary method in statelaw and tends to produce more“pillars-of-the-community-type” people comparedwith thealternative of random selec-tion, Shipman said. Texas usesa random process to select trialjuries.Shipman did not believe

there was anything unusualabout the grand jury thatindicted Clifton.“It was made up just like any

other grand jury,” he said. “Thesame process is used that’s usedyear-in, year-out [and]month-in, month-out all over the stateof Texas, as prescribed by theLegislature.”

Potential conflictsof interestThe Record-Chronicle re-

ported in January that thegrand jury included formerMayorMcNeill andGosdin, thehusband of Mayor Pro TemPete Kamp. McNeill, Kampand Burroughs were targets ofa Clifton-backed lawsuit accus-ing the city of allowing termlimit violations in 2008.Clifton and McNeill were

also political rivals in 2006 astwo of the three candidates formayor, in a race McNeill won.Both McNeill and Gosdin

have said they abstained fromthe Clifton case because ofpotential conflicts of interest.But the Record-Chronicle’s

investigation of court docu-ments, campaign financereports and other publicrecords found the potential forconflicts ran wider than previ-ously known.Also, the grand jury indicted

Clifton even though a DentonCounty sheriff ’s investigatordetermined twice that therewas no evidence Clifton com-mitted bribery — a conclusionechoed by a representativefrom the district attorney’soffice, according to sheriff ’sreports obtained by the news-paper. The grand jury alsoindicted Clifton on a charge oftampering with a governmen-tal record, alleging that he useda false address to run formayor.Clifton is still awaiting trial.

He faces up to 20 years inprison if found guilty of bribery.The tampering charge, a ClassA misdemeanor, carries up to ayear in jail and a $4,000 fine.Clifton has denied the

LOCAL4A Sunday, October 16, 2011 Denton Record-Chronicle

SIGNING INGrand jurors signed in the day they heard the case involving Bob Clifton. One grand juror, Fran Hannah, wasabsent. Two others, Perry McNeill and David Gosdin, were asked by the district attorney’s office to recusethemselves when the Clifton case was presented.

It’s the judge picking five friends who then pick their friends,and the judge picks 12 people from that. The jury is basically going to look like the judge.It typically doesn’t represent a cross-section of the community.” — Jim Harrington, Austin attorney

From Page 1A

Grand jury

charges, saying he approachedBurroughs during the 2010election to try to settle an out-standing lawsuit, not to ask formoney to leave the race.Burroughs, a lawyer, said he

was unaware of how grandjurors are chosen, adding thathe played no role in the selec-tion process.In jury trials, potential jurors

are questioned to weed outthose with conflicts of interest,but grand jurors face no suchscrutiny. By law, anyone canchallenge the makeup of agrand jury, but the challengemust come before the grandjury is impaneled.Clifton’s attorney, Charles

Orsburn, challenged the grandjury’s makeup months after theindictments, during a hearingin March, saying the memberswere all part of the samesocioeconomic class. DistrictJudge Steve Burgess denied amotion to dismiss the indict-ments for that reason, sayinghe heard no evidence to sup-port the challenge.Orsburn said the Record-

Chronicle’s findings confirmedhis suspicions.“It couldn’t just be a coinci-

dence that all of these peoplewith a political motive to stopClifton and his criticism ofBurroughs were on the grandjury,” Orsburn said.The grand jury system his-

torically was an attempt toensure prosecutions were freeof political influence, Orsburnsaid.“This case shows it can be

turned on its head and can beused for the very evil it wasoriginally conceived to pre-vent,” he said.The district attorney’s office

presents cases to the grand jurybut plays no role in selectinggrand jurors, said Jamie Beck,first assistant district attorney.In Clifton’s case, prosecutors

asked McNeill and Gosdin toabstain because they plannedto play a recording that men-

tioned their names, Beck said.They also asked the remaininggrand jurors if they knewBurroughs or Clifton, and foursaid they did and were given achance to abstain, she said.“None of them wanted to

abstain,” Beck said. “We did notknow, nor did we explore, howthey knew them [Burroughs orClifton]. The things you’rerevealing to us,wedidnot knowand they did not volunteer.”The finding that there was

no evidence Clifton committedbribery was an excerpt of aDenton County sheriff ’s reportand didn’t reflect other evi-dence gathered by the state,Beck said.Unlike in some criminal

cases, Clifton had not beenarrested or charged with acrime before the indictments.Prosecutors wanted a grandjury to decide probable cause inthe case because it involved apublic figure, Beck said.“We wanted to put that dis-

tance between us and have aneutral, independent bodydecide,” Beck said. “We had noidea of these connections, soweweren’t in any way involved inany politically motivated stack-ing of the grand jury.”

Past feudsBoth indictments against

Clifton stemmed from com-plaints brought by Burroughsor his law firm, Sawko &Burroughs PC, according topublic records and interviews.Denton city prosecutorStephanie Berry is listed as thecomplainant in the tamperingcase, but Berry has said shefiled the complaint after alawyer at Burroughs’ firmapproached her with evidencethat Clifton was not living inDenton.Burroughs was in regular

contact with Sheriff BennyParkey and investigatorsbetweenMarch and July of lastyear, according to investigators’reports. At one point,Burroughs asked an investiga-tor to delay filing the briberycase until the city filed the tam-pering case because “he feltthat it would appear that he,the county and the city ofDenton were conspiringagainst Bob Clifton,” the inves-tigator wrote.

Burroughs told the Record-Chronicle he did not recallmaking those comments.“That must have been his

[the investigator’s] language orhis interpretation,” Burroughssaid. “That has nothing to dowith me.”In a January interview,

Clifton said Burroughs had tar-geted him since 2008, whenClifton distributed a series ofmailers attacking Burroughs’first mayoral campaign overpotential conflicts of interest.Sawko & Burroughs earnsmoney from collecting delin-quent taxes for area citiesincluding Denton.Burroughs sued Clifton over

the 2008 mailers, saying heviolated the law by failing todisclose who paid for them.Clifton later filed finance-dis-closure reports and paid a$200 fine to settle a state ethicsinvestigation, but Burroughsnever dropped the lawsuit.Burroughs, in a June 2010

interview, said the state ethicsinvestigation was limited anddidn’t address all the issues inhis lawsuit. He also said he wasusing the case to exploreClifton’s residency.

Finding a neutral bodyBy law, grand juries meet in

secret to hear evidence fromprosecutors and decidewhether probable cause existsto indict someone for a crime.In most jurisdictions across

the U.S., grand jurors areselected from the same pooland in the same way as trialjuries, according to theAmerican Bar Association.That means names are ran-domly picked from voter rolls,motor vehicle lists or otherdatabases.Texas used the key-man sys-

tem exclusively until 1979,when the Legislature startedallowing state district judges tochoose whether to select grandjurors through an appointedcommission or a more randomprocess.Denton is among the coun-

ties that use a commission,where a judge appoints three tofive commissioners to pickpotential grand jurors. Amongother requirements, commis-sioners are supposed to be“intelligent citizens” who live in

different parts of the county.The commission compiles a

list of 15 to 40 potential grandjurors, and the court uses thelist to impanel the 12 grandjurors and two alternates need-ed for each three-month grandjury term. The grand jurors aresupposed to represent a broadcross-section of the population,including such factors as race,sex and age, according to stateand federal law.To comply with the law,

Shipman said he instructs thecommissioners to nominate adiverse group. Once the groupis summoned, however, Ship-man said he allows potentialgrand jurors to opt out if theymeet one of the exemptionsunder the law or if service couldbe a hardship for them.Austin lawyer Jim

Harrington, whose lawsuit overa lack of minorities on grandjuries in Hidalgo County in the1970s helped lead to thechange in state law, said thekey-man system tends toexclude everyone but whitemen.“It’s the judge picking five

friends who then pick theirfriends, and the judge picks 12people from that,” saidHarrington, director of theTexas Civil Rights Project. “Thejury is basically going to looklike the judge. It typically does-n’t represent a cross-section ofthe community.”

Connections foundThe grand jury that indicted

Clifton in December was aproduct of a commissionappointed by Shipman, whopresides over the 211th DistrictCourt.The commission included

two Denton residents, GeorgeHopkins and Jeff King, alongwith Ricky Grunden of Krum,Johnny Hunter of Pilot Pointand Roberta Brazil ofCarrollton.Shipman could not recall

how he selected commissionersfor that term, saying he typical-ly picks acquaintances or for-mer grand jurors with goodreputations in the community.Records show Brazil did not

participate in selecting grandjurors. Reached by phone,Brazil said the judge excusedher from service because shehad recently started a new job.Two of the four remaining

commissioners had politicalties to Burroughs, Kamp orcouncil member James King,the twin brother of grand jurycommissioner Jeff King. JamesKing served on Burroughs’2008 campaign committeeand his wife, Melinda, servedon Burroughs’ re-election com-mittee last year.Jeff King, who runs an insur-

ance agency with his brother,said James King had “no bear-ing whatsoever” on the processand did not suggest names forthe grand jury.“There were no outside influ-

ences,” Jeff King said.Hopkins served on Kamp’s

2010 re-election committeeand donated $100 each toKamp, James King andBurroughs that year, accordingto campaign finance reports.Hopkins’ wife, Jane Hopkins,served as Kamp’s campaigntreasurer.George Hopkins down-

played the connections, sayinghe and his wife have supportedmany candidates over theyears.The commissioners pro-

duced a list of 40 potentialgrand jurors, who were sum-moned to court for final selec-tion. Of the 12 selected byShipman, only five had no obvi-ous ties to Burroughs or the citygovernment.Two alternates were selected

but weren’t called on to serve.Shipman could not recall

details of the selection butbelieved he picked the first 12people who were both eligibleandwilling to serve, he said.Hedid not know Clifton’s case wascoming before that grand jurywhen he assembled it, he said.Some of those involved had

donated money to Shipman’sjudicial campaigns.Campaign finance reports

show Shipman has received$450 from Burroughs and hislaw firm, Sawko & Burroughs,since 2005. The reports alsoshow past donations from oneof the grand jurors, KayCopeland, and the law firm ofAlagood & Cartwright P.C.Scott Alagood, a partner in thefirm, is married to grand jurorDawn Alagood.Shipman said the donations

were irrelevant and represent-ed a fraction of the $100,000to $150,000 cost of running asuccessful race for districtjudge.Hopkins defended the com-

mission’s work and said theRecord-Chronicle was “out on ajoy ride.” Hopkins, a formerassistant county attorney, han-dled grand juries in the late1940s.“In years gone by, the grand

jury probably had all white,well-educated people living inDenton,” Hopkins said. “Overthe years that has drasticallychanged.”The list of 40 potential grand

jurors represented a fair cross-section of the community,including racial minorities andpeople from southern DentonCounty, Hopkins said. Severalpotential grand jurors weresuggested by more than onecommissioner.“Our job was to get an

impartial bunch,” Hopkinssaid. “I think when you have asystem such as we have, you’regoing to be inclined to wind upwith names of people that youknow or know of.”He never got the impression

there was an agenda behindany of the commissioners’picks, Hopkins said. He andother commissioners inter-viewed for this story said theydid not know which cases werecoming before the grand jurywhen they recommendednames to the judge.“It was entirely random,” Jeff

King said.King said the court provided

commissioners a list of namesto choose from, and he thoughtthe list was based on voter rolls.Two other commissioners,Hopkins and Grunden, saidthey simply suggested namesand didn’t use voter rolls.Hunter could not be reached

for comment.The political connections

extended to many of the grandjurors. Some had more thanone connection, includingGosdin, who is married toKamp and served onBurroughs’ 2010 re-electioncommittee.Gosdin declined to com-

ment.Another grand juror, Jack

Miller, is a former mayor and aBurroughs donor whose wife,Evelyn Miller, served onBurroughs’ re-election com-mittee.Jack Miller said he consid-

ered abstaining from Clifton’scase but decided he could beimpartial.“I explained [to the district

attorney’s office] that I’d servedas mayor of Denton and I wasasked could I be objective,”Miller said. “The answer wasyes and it still is.”The grand jury also included

Sue Fickey of Corinth and

Burroughs Clifton

Continued on Page 5A

Marc Moffitt of Denton, whoeach donated money toBurroughs’ 2008 campaign,and Charles Parker of Denton,a Burroughs committee mem-ber and donor.

Fickey said her $100 dona-tion to Burroughs’ 2008 cam-paign did not impair her abilityto judge a criminal case inwhich Burroughs is the allegedvictim.

Moffitt is a candidate forcounty tax assessor and is pic-tured on his campaign websiteposing with political figuresincluding Burroughs.

In interviews, Moffitt andParker each described Bur-roughs as a friend. They saidtheir friendship did not preventthem from being fair judges inClifton’s case, although Parkersaid he considered abstainingbecause of the friendship.

“If there’s a suggestion thatthere may be some groupthinkthat takes place in the grandjury, I would strongly disagreewith that statement,” Moffittsaid.

Unanimous votesCourt records show grand

juror Fran Hannah was absentDec. 16, the day the districtattorney’s office presentedClifton’s case. Hannah, a realestate agent, said she wouldhave abstained had she beenthere because she once showedhouses to Clifton.

With Gosdin and McNeillabstaining and Hannah absent,that left nine grand jurors tohear Clifton’s case, meaning thevotes to indict had to be unani-mous. By law, at least ninegrand jurors must approve anindictment.

“We had a lot of differentopinions about the cases thatcame in except for the oneabout [Clifton],” grand jurorEd Coe said. “I asked a fewquestions because I thought,

‘Well, this, this and this.’ He wasso in the wrong on this that itreally — he was so blatantly abogus candidate, and I didn’thave any personal interest orinvolvement or anything. Heclearly wasn’t eligible and justwanted to stir things up.”

Other grand jurors eitherdeclined to comment or couldnot be reached.

“I am going to abide by thedistrict attorney, who statedthat everything that was donein the grand jury was secret,”said Denton libraries directorEva Poole, a grand juror whoseemployer, the city of Denton,has been the target of multipleClifton-backed lawsuits.

The pool of candidates notselected for the grand juryincluded at least two formerDenton City Council members:Bob Montgomery and GuyMcElroy, another member ofBurroughs’ re-election commit-tee. Also in the pool was Dentonphotographer Walter Eagleton,a Burroughs committee mem-ber who ran for City Council in2005 against Clifton and fourother candidates.

Beyond political ties, manyof those involved are membersof common community boardsor social clubs, including theDenton Public SchoolFoundation and the Ariel Club,a Denton women’s club.

Shipman would not saywhether he thought the make-up of the grand jury was fair toClifton.

“If it were going to be a petitjury, deciding the guilt or inno-cence, a lot of those connec-tions would have been exploredby the attorneys probably,”Shipman said. “With a grandjury, where the focus is onprobable cause, you don’t havethe opportunity — because youdon’t know what cases are com-ing up in front of the grand jury— to do that same evaluation.”

Even in a trial jury, most ofthe connections found by the

LOCALDenton Record-Chronicle Sunday, October 16, 2011 5A

GRANDJURY

Shipman2009

Shipman2005

Kamp2007

Kamp2008

Kamp2010

Burroughs2008

Burroughs2010

King 2010Gabriel

Carraza

Ed CoeKeller

WilliamsRealty

DentonPublicLibrary

DATCU

FranHannah

ArielClub

DentonBenefitLeague

TheArtsGuild

Emily FowlerLibrary

Foundation

GreaterDenton Arts

Council

United Way

DentonPublic SchoolFoundation

PerryMcNeill

SuzanneFickey

JerryFalbo

Eva Poole

CharlesParker

Judge L. DeeShipman

DavidGosslin

DawnAlagood

Jack Miller

KayCopeland

MarcMoffitt

Evelyn Miller

ScottAlagood

RickyGrunden

Ellen Sawko

Greg Sawko

Sawko &Burroughs

DentonBar

Association Chamberof Commerce

PremiereBlueprinting

Denton CityCouncil

Dentonmayor

GeorgeHopkins Jeff

King MelindaKing

JamesKing

PeteKamp

MarkBurroughs

JaneHopkins

JohnnyHunterJURY

COMMISSION

ALTERNATEMEMBERS

CarolRowley

GRAND JURY RELATIONSHIPSThis social network graphic shows some of the relationships between the members of the grand jury and Denton City Hall.The information was compiled with Microsoft Excel and relationships drawn using the NodeXLGraph plug-in. The spreadsheet was built with the namesof the grand jury commission and grand jury members, elected officials, their spouses and other family relationships, their business partners orplaces of employment, and their participation in local fundraising groups and political races.Unmarked blue dots represent a spouse. Unmarked gray dots represent a relationship with a business.

GRAND JURY DEMOGRAPHICS

Staff graphic

The Texas Code of Criminal Procedure requires that a grand jury be selected to “represent a broad cross-section of the population of the county, considering the factors of race, sex and age.” According to the 2010 U.S. Census, Denton County is 49.9 percent male and 50.1 percent female. The fall 2010 grand jury was made up of seven men and five women, or 58 percent male and 42 percent female. The median age of the grand jury was 59.9 years old. Below are the county’s racial demographics** and how they might populate a representative grand jury compared to the same demographics of the 2010 grand jury.

DENTONCOUNTY

75%

8%

7%

6%

3%

1%

0%

ACTUAL GRAND JURY

84%

8%

0%

0%

0%

8%*

0%

REPRESENTATIVEGRAND JURY

White: 75%

Black: 8%

Asian: 8%

Other: 8%

Two or more: 0%

American Indian: 0%

Hawaiian/Pac. Islander: 0%

*One grand jury member self-identifies as a member of the Cherokee Nation.**Percentages include Hispanics who are not categorized by race in the U.S. census.

SOURCES: 2010 U.S. census, Denton County clerk, staff research

Staff graphic

Continued from Page 4A

Record-Chronicle would notautomatically disqualify some-one from service, Shipmansaid.

“The fact that somebodygave Burroughs $100 in his re-election campaign is not goingto be an automatic disqualifica-tion if he’s the victim in a case,”Shipman said. “The question isgoing to be, ‘[Is there] anythingabout your relationship withMr. Burroughs that would keepyou from being fair and impar-tial?’”

‘A convenient system’Key-man jury selection was

common in the U.S. when onlywhite male property ownerscould vote. It was graduallyreplaced in most states withmore inclusive methods,according to the AmericanJudicature Society, an inde-pendent fair-justice organiza-tion in Des Moines, Iowa.

Congress eliminated the key-man system in federal courtsthrough the Jury Selection andService Act in 1968.

Judges in Travis, Harris andBexar counties have chosengrand jurors randomly, accord-ing to news reports.

District judge for the 399th

District Court of Bexar Countyfor 11 years, Juanita Vasquez-Gardner oversees one to twogrand juries in her court eachyear. The people who serve areselected through the sameprocess as petit juries and arereflective of the community,she said.

Those who are selected asgrand jurors sometimes find iteasier to serve because they canwork around the grand jury’smore predictable schedule,which is three hours two morn-ings a week for two months, shesaid. For many the pay is not ahardship either, because the$40 per day works out to beabout $13 an hour.

Melissa Barlow Fischer,administrative attorney for allthe criminal courts in BexarCounty, said judges there havenot used the “pick-a-pal” sys-tem in years.

“It’s a lot more difficult to doit right, in my opinion,” Fischersaid.

Recently, a newly electedjudge wanted to use the key-man system instead of the ran-dom selection other judges use,Fischer said. One of the staffattorneys, Ana Amici, reviewedthe matter with the judge.

“It’s an antiquated system,”Amici said.

In addition, when using key-man, the state’s requirementsto build a grand jury thatreflects the community arestrict.

“The judge finally said it wastoo much work in order toavoid problems later,” Amicisaid, adding that unlike prob-lems with a petit jury, problemswith a grand jury can affect notjust one problematic case, buthundreds of indictments.

No single organization trackswhich judges use the key-mansystem in Texas, according tostate officials and legal organi-zations.

“They use it because it’s aconvenient system,” said Larry

Karson, a University ofHouston-Downtown criminaljustice lecturer who authored a2006 study that found dispari-ties in the key-man system inHarris County. “It wasn’t donewith the intention to corruptjustice. It was done becausethat’s how we did it and it wasmore efficient.”

Grand jurors in DentonCounty get paid $34 a day andmust be willing to devote everyThursday for three months,which could be a hardship formany people. Under state law,grand jurors must be literate, of“sound mind” and “good moralcharacter,” and have no felony ormisdemeanor theft convictions.

People who meet those qual-ifications can avoid service ifthey are over age 70, a parent ofa child younger than 18, a stu-dent or have another “reason-able” excuse, according to thelaw.

“By using key man, it was away to cut through the chaff toget to the wheat of those willingto serve,” Karson said.

Karson’s study of HarrisCounty grand jury commis-sioners in 2002 and 2003found that more than half weredirectly connected to the crimi-nal justice system as courtemployees, lawyers, probationofficers, bail bondsmen, orretired or current law enforce-ment. He also found Hispanicswere underrepresented ongrand juries.

Karson said he believes Texasshould follow most states andabandon the key-man system.

“They have managed” with-out it, he said. “Texas shouldmanage, too.”

LOWELL BROWN can bereached at 940-566-6882. Hise-mail address is lmbrown@dentonrc.com.

PEGGY HEINKEL-WOLFEcan be reached at 940-566-6881. Her e-mail address ispheinkel-wolfe@dentonrc.com.

We had a lot of different opinions about the cases that came in except for the one about [Clifton]. ... He was so in the wrong on this that it really — he was so blatantly a bogus candidate, and I didn’t have any personal interest or involvement or anything.” — Ed Coe, grand juror