VAIDIK, J.
At trial, the jury pool contained no African-Americans. Bond moved to strike the entire venire because it did not represent a fair cross-section of the community. The trial court denied the motion. The trial court explained that the jury panel selection process was entirely random:
The procedure utilized by the Court is in accordance with the jury rules. We use a one tier system, pursuant to local rule. The names that are provided to the Court, are provided by the Indiana Judicial Center, State Court Administration, based upon the list that is provided by them. The list is then inserted into the computer, then names are randomly drawn from that list.
Every time a judge asks for a jury pool, there is no weighting of numbers of jurors who are selected from a particular area or zip code within St. Joseph County. It’s done completely randomly.
That’s just my Record as to how jurors are selected.
As a matter of fact, the jurors are even seated in the jury box and numbered randomly without any input by the Court.
And so the motion to strike the entire panel is denied.
. . . .
Bond first argues that the absence of African-Americans from the jury venire violated his rights to an impartial jury.
The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury.” The United States Supreme Court has long held that “the selection of a petit jury from a representative cross section of the community is an essential component of the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial.” Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 528 (1975). To show a prima facie violation of the fair-cross-section requirement, the defendant must show that: (1) the group being excluded is a distinctive group in the community; (2) the representation of this group in jury pools from which juries are being selected is not fair and reasonable in relation to the number of such persons in the community; and (3) this underrepresentation is caused by systematic exclusion. Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357, 364 (1979); Berghuis v. Smith, No. 08-1402, slip op. at 1 (U.S. Mar. 30, 2010); Ewing v. State, 719 N.E.2d 1221, 1226 (Ind. 1999).
Here Bond offers no evidence that an underrepresentation of African-Americans in the jury venire was caused by systematic exclusion. Accordingly, he concedes that his claim cannot prevail under Duren. Appellant’s Br. p. 18; see also Wilder v. State, 813 N.E.2d 788, 793 (Ind. Ct. App. 2004) (holding that although African-Americans may have been underrepresented in the jury pool, the defendant’s claim failed because he did not provide evidence that the selection process systematically excluded African-Americans), trans. denied.
Bond nonetheless asks us to “alter the criteria for determining whether the jury selection procedure is actually producing juries that are representative cross-sections of the community. The criterion should be that when no member of an acknowledged distinctive group is present in a jury venire that the venire be excused and another summonsed.” Appellant’s Br. p. 19. “This remedy would not be available if there was a showing, using valid and recognized statistical and sampling methods, that the groupings from which jury pools are selected do include these distinctive groups, particularly racial and ethnic minorities, in numbers reasonably proportional to their presence in the community.” Id. at 19-20.
We are bound by Duren and Ewing and are not at liberty to adopt Bond‟s proposed standard. We are sensitive to Bond’s concerns, however, for two main reasons. First, Indiana jury selection procedures have changed in recent years. The lists compiled for jury selection used to be generated at the local county level but are now created by the state Judicial Center. This migration as a practical matter makes the collection of jury-selection information more difficult for defendants who are attempting to establish their fair-cross-section prima facie cases.
Second, in other race or gender-based Constitutional jury challenges, the burden shifts more easily to the State to establish the legitimacy and neutrality of its procedures. See Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 96-97 (1986). In Batson, the United States Supreme Court set forth a three-step process for challenging the State’s allegedly discriminatory exercise of peremptory strikes. Jeter v. State, 888 N.E.2d 1257, 1263 (Ind. 2008), cert. denied, 129 S. Ct. 645 (2008). The party raising the Batson challenge must first make a prima facie showing that the other party exercised a peremptory challenge on the basis of race. Id. (citing Batson, 476 U.S. at 96). The burden then shifts to the party exercising the peremptory strike to present a race-neutral explanation for striking the juror. Id. (citing Batson, 476 U.S. at 97). Finally, the trial court must decide whether the party making the Batson challenge has carried its burden of proving purposeful discrimination. Jeter, 888 N.E.2d at 1263 (citing Batson, 476 U.S. at 98). Batson sought to relieve defendants of the “crippling burden of proof” which existed under earlier precedent, see Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202, 223-24 (1965), and which formerly required a defendant to show systematic discrimination by the State extending beyond his own case. Batson, 476 U.S. at 92-93.
To be sure, “no court has found the burden shifting principle from Batson to be appropriate in the Duren context.” United States v. Neighbors, 590 F.3d 485, 492 (7th Cir. 2009). But the federal constitution “establishes rights that the states may choose to expand.” Edwards v. State, 902 N.E.2d 821, 829 (Ind. 2009). Given the practical difficulties of showing systematic exclusion of minorities from jury pools in Indiana, we think easing the Duren burden for Hoosiers may be worth considering.
For now it is a good first step to have selection procedures on the internet. Those procedures may be found at http://www.in.gov/judiciary/center/jury/. It is important for judges and litigants to be apprised of the Judicial Center’s selection processes.
In any event, Bond has failed to show that the jury selection process systematically excludes African-Americans. We therefore conclude that under the current state of the law in this area, the absence of African-Americans from the jury venire did not violate Bond’s Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury.
BARNES, J., and CRONE, J., concur.