Postconviction Review of Jury Discrimination: Measuring the Effects of Juror Race on Jury Decisions

Abstract

As the Court has expanded its definition of jury selection techniques that violate constitutional standards, it has narrowed the circumstances that entitle defendants to postconviction relief. These two developments are now colliding; the emerging law is uncertain. One trend, however, is plain: divisions over the utility and propriety of applying harmless error, prejudice, and innocence standards to jury discrimination claims are deepening. By carefully evaluating the validity of some these disputes, I hope to have made remedial choices more informed and more attainable

A Field Study of the Presumptively Biased: Is There Empirical Support for Excluding Convicted Felons from Jury Service?

“…Accordingly, along with responses to the RJBS, I collected data on a number of characteristics shown to potentially influence jurors' pretrial attitudes. The data record subjects' age (Higgins, Heath, and Grannemann 2007), gender (Quas et al 2002;Moran and Comfort 1982a), race (King 1993;Mills and Bohannon 1980), native language (Hsieh 2001), occupational status (Cowan, Thompson, and Ellsworth 1984;Bridgeman and Marlowe 1979;Simon 1967), religion (Miller et al 2011;Seltzer 2006;Eisenberg, Garvey, and Martin T. Wells 2001), socioeconomic status (Adler 1994;Reed 1965), level of education (Mills and Bohannon 1980;Bridgeman and Marlowe 1979;Simon 1967), history of victimization (Culhane, Hosch, and Weaver 2004), political affiliation (Kravitz, Cutler, and Brock 1993), and view of the death penalty (Allen, Mabry, and McKelton 1998;Horowitz and Seguin 1986;Bernard and Dwyer 1984;Cowan, Thompson, and Ellsworth 1984;Moran and Comfort 1982b).…”

“Race salience” in juror decision‐making: misconceptions, clarifications, and unanswered questions

“…Because the prevalent assumption was that juror racial bias would be greatest in cases involving blatantly race-relevant issues (see, e.g., Fukurai, Butler, & Krooth, 1993;King, 1993), each of the trial summaries described a racially charged incident: (1) a heated locker room dispute involving racial language; (2) a mugging in which the victim was told that he should go back to his own neighborhood; (3) the armed intrusion into a law school admissions office of a rejected applicant frustrated by the racial composition of the admitted class; (4) a domestic assault involving racial language; (5) a church arson motivated by racial animus. We found that Black mock jurors were less likely to vote to convict the Black defendant than the White defendant in these cases, but White mock jurors' judgments did not vary significantly by defendant race.…”

Demographics In Civil Trials: Biases And Implications

“…In criminal cases where the insanity defense may apply, Breheney et al ( 2007) show juror gender may make a difference in verdict, although the dynamics of gender effects needs further research. King's (1991), review cites a number of studies that show racial composition of juries changes verdicts, including those by Alschuler ( 1989), Johnson (1985), Underwood (1992), Miller (1978), Ugwuegbu (1979), Mills (1980), and Lipton (1983). Collectively, these studies show that the extent to which race impacts the verdict depends on a number of factors including, defendant's and victim's race, strength of evidence, case attributes (e.g., racially charged issues, black versus white parties, rights-active parties, attorneys' race, indictments and sentences),and jury racial heterogeneity.…”