LANDER (AP) - Fremont County judges plan to proceed with expansion of jury pools to include more Native Americans despite Secretary of State Joe Meyer's reluctance to become directly involved.

Current lists come from registered voters, but the courts want to include names submitted by the Shoshone and Arapaho Tribal Court of the Wind River Indian Reservation to provide for more diverse juries.

An order from the judges was directed to Meyer, the state's top elections official, but he questioned whether he has the authority to become involved in preparation of jury lists.

"I do not mind assisting other branches of government in carrying out their duties," he wrote Dec. 8 to Ninth District Judges Nancy Guthrie and Norman Young. "However, at the present, there appears to be some assumption that preparation of jury lists is a responsibility of this office, but that does not appear to be stated in any statute or rule."

The March 11 standing order of Guthrie, Young and Tribal Chief Judge John St. Clair to change the jury lists would be better directed to county clerks, Meyer said, who could work with the state Department of Administration and Information and tribal government to develop appropriate lists.

The order, which stemmed from a proposal by Riverton attorney Donald Rissler, states that "more Native Americans need to be represented on juries in Fremont County." It noted that American Indians make up 21 percent of Fremont County's residents.

Young said Meyer's letter will not derail plans to expand jury pools.

"My intention is to sit down with Judge Guthrie and see how we'll handle this letter from Joe," Young said. "There is no notion at this point that we'll throw out this process. In my opinion, it's more of how we're going to get this done."

"Joe has raised a mechanical issue, and it doesn't change the substance of the order," he said.

Meyer's letter suggested that whatever jury list proposal is implemented, "it should be explained and referenced in statute or court rules which should also address a number of probable questions anytime a jury list pool is expanded to include members of one or more ethnic groups but not all, applying in one or more counties but not all where members of the ethnic group reside, and the like."

Rissler and Lander attorney Vance Countryman, who agreed to work on the plan, said state law allows a base jury list to be expanded to include sources other than voter rolls.

Not including more American Indians in jury trials could cause legal difficulties at some point, Rissler said.

"It is just a matter of time before the issue is sufficiently raised causing a mistrial," he wrote in 2002 to Meyer and then-Attorney General Hoke MacMillan.