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.]
