ABSOLUTE DISPARITY

absolute disparity.Constitutional law. The difference between the percentage of a group in the

general popula-tion and the percentage of that group in the pool of prospective jurors on a venire.

•  For  example,  if  Afri-can-Americans  make  up  12%  of  a  county’s  population  and  8%  of  the

potential jurors on a venire, the absolute disparity of African-American veniremembers is 4%. The

reason for calculating the disparity is to analyze a claim that the jury was not impartial because the

venire  from  which  it  was  chosen  did  not  represent  a  fair  cross-section  of  the  jurisdiction’s

population.   Some   courts   criticize   the   absolute-disparity   analysis,   favoring   instead   the

comparative-disparity  analysis,  in  the  belief  that  the  absolute-disparity  analysis  understates  the

deviation.        See        FAIR-CROSS-SECTION        REQUIREMENT;        DUREN        TEST;

STATISTICAL-DECISION   THEORY   Y.   Cf.   COMPARATIVE   DISPARITY.   [Cases:   Jury

33(1.1). C.J.S. Juries §§ 269–273, 279, 306.] [Blacks Law 8th]