Feds Go After Rights Attorney: Fieger wants charges dismissed, saying jury isn't Black enough

Paul Egan / The Detroit News
DETROIT -- Southfield attorney Geoffrey Fieger on Thursday asked a federal judge to dismiss criminal charges against him because blacks were underrepresented on the grand jury that indicted him and in the jury pool for his trial set to start Monday.

Fieger, who is white, argued in a motion filed with U.S. District Judge Paul D. Borman that the jury selection process in Detroit violates the Jury Selection and Service Act because it does not produce a representative cross-section of the community.

Fieger, 56, and his law partner, Ven Johnson, 46, are accused of making $127,000 in illegal campaign donations to the 2004 presidential campaign of Democrat John Edwards by reimbursing employees, employee relatives and others connected with the firm. Fieger is also charged with obstruction of justice, a 10-year felony.

Black defendants have made similar complaints. It's less common for a white defendant to complain blacks are underrepresented on his jury.

Fieger's popularity in mostly black Detroit helped him win the Democratic nomination for governor in 1998. Fieger has also talked publicly about running for mayor of Detroit.

Of 186 potential jurors drawn from the eastern district of Michigan for Fieger's trial, only 18, or 10 percent, are black, Fieger lawyer Michael Dezsi said in a motion seeking to dismiss the charges. Blacks make up 22 percent of the nine counties that make up the district, so this is "a gross deviation not capable of being explained by happenstance," the motion argued.

Wayne County, about 42 percent black, is underrepresented in the jury pool, Dezsi argued. The grand jury that indicted Fieger last year had the same problem, he said.

Troy lawyer John Freeman, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Detroit, said he expects Fieger is attempting to preserve a possible appeal issue in case he is convicted.

"I would be very surprised if the motion were granted," because the federal jury selection process in Detroit has been upheld by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Freeman said.

Detroit attorney Richard L. Steinberg, who has represented Fieger in the past, said "it's an unorthodox approach," but "a reasonable trial tactic."

Some studies have shown that "because blacks have been oppressed in this country, they are less likely to convict," Steinberg said. Also, "they are more suspicious of police testimony."[MORE]