 Fewer than 9 percent of Harris County residents summoned for grand jury selection showed up last week as the service moved to NRG Arena to accommodate social distancing measures, according to the Harris County District Clerks Office. The pool to empanel grand juries for five felony district courts was slightly more diverse than it was for all jury selections from 2019, but continued to underrepresent Black and Hispanic populations. The number of people who showed up in person at NRG or virtually by Zoom was less than usual turnout, but expected because of the pandemic, District Clerk Marilyn Burgess said. In 2019, 22 percent of people who were called for jury duty actually appeared. While our response rate was lower than in normal times, we got what we needed, Burgess said. On six days of jury duty, from July 6 to 13, 424 people appeared in person or by Zoom out of 5,000 who were summoned. Almost 1,350 of those who were called were exempted from service, and 719 summons were undeliverable. Appearances didnt match up to population estimates. During grand jury selection, about 49 percent of prospective jurors were white, 24 percent were Hispanic or Latino, 15 percent were Black and 8 percent were Asian. In July 2019, Harris County census estimates placed the population at 28.7 percent white, 43.7 percent Hispanic or Latino, 20 percent Black and 7.3 percent Asian. Throughout that year, 54 percent of jury duty participants were white, 20 percent were Hispanic, 15 percent were Black and 10 percent were Asian. Howard Henderson, founding director of the Center for Justice Research at Texas Southern University, said he found the racial diversity statistics encouraging. ... 