Federal judge tosses Bronx gun case over racial makeup of grand jury

A Manhattan federal judge dismissed a case against a reputed gang member in a shooting last year — because the suburban grand jury that indicted him wasn’t diverse enough. In a 36-page ruling, Judge Analisa Torres said defendant William “Ill Will” Scott “produced clear statistical evidence” that he was indicted by members of a grand jury pool in White Plains with an “underrepresentation of Black and Latinx individuals.”

Torres, who was nominated to the bench in 2013 by then-President Barack Obama, also said Scott had shown that the grand jury selection process “was susceptible to abuse.” “The Government has failed to meet its burden by coming forward with evidence rebutting the presumption that such underrepresentation was the result of purposeful discrimination,” she wrote Monday.