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Jury Pool Filled with Deceased, Elderly
9 Jun
Summary
- Jury panel included over 60 deceased individuals.
- No jurors were younger than 42; median age was 72.
- Trial delayed pending report on jury selection randomization.
A criminal trial in Whiteside County, Illinois, has been delayed due to severe flaws discovered in the jury selection process. The panel intended for Michael Cover's trial, scheduled to begin on Tuesday, June 9, 2026, was found to include at least 60 deceased individuals and had a median age of 72, with no jurors younger than 42. This startling revelation has prompted a delay, with the trial now tentatively set to start Wednesday, June 10, 2026.
To address these concerns, a team of mathematicians from the University of Chicago has been tasked with reviewing the county's master jury list of 48,300 names and the subsequent selection of a 100-name pool. Their analysis aims to determine if the selection process is truly random. Defense attorney James Mertes has already voiced doubts, noting that five names from the current pool had appeared on previous lists within the last four months, suggesting a lack of randomization.
The current issues are part of a larger problem that surfaced in February 2026. Mertes argued that the Circuit Clerk's Office had been systematically excluding qualified jurors for over three decades based on various criteria, violating state and federal law. This led to the dismissal of three previous jury panels. Judges have since appointed a jury commission to oversee the process, but the April jury panel's composition, featuring numerous elderly and deceased individuals, highlights persistent problems with the software and data management used by the clerk's office, which fails to purge outdated information.
