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The Impact of Jury Race in Criminal Trials. All-White jury pools convict black defend

H

Herr Heckler Koch

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http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/04/15/qje.qjs014.full

http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/04/15/qje.qjs014.full.pdf+html 39 pages 330 KB

Abstract said:
Abstract

This article examines the impact of jury racial composition on trial outcomes using a data set of felony trials in Florida between 2000 and 2010. We use a research design that exploits day-to-day variation in the composition of the jury pool to isolate quasi-random variation in the composition of the seated jury, finding evidence that (i) juries formed from all-white jury pools convict black defendants significantly (16 percentage points) more often than white defendants, and (ii) this gap in conviction rates is entirely eliminated when the jury pool includes at least one black member. The impact of jury race is much greater than what a simple correlation of the race of the seated jury and conviction rates would suggest. These findings imply that the application of justice is highly uneven and raise obvious concerns about the fairness of trials in jurisdictions with a small proportion of blacks in the jury pool.

http://phys.org/news/2012-04-all-white-jury-pools-convict-black.html

The idea of an all white jury pool is mind boggling, jury pools being randomly drawn from the jurisdiction population.
 
Last edited:

OC for ME

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Jan 6, 2010
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So, the conclusion they draw seems to make sense.

What is the 'fix', the cops go out and snatch a couple of blacks off the street and seat them on the jury?

Simply knowing 'why' does not necessarily translate into knowing what to do to fix it. They did not provide a solution, but they were/are not looking for a solution.
 

Beretta92FSLady

Regular Member
Joined
Dec 14, 2009
Messages
5,264
Location
In My Coffee
So, the conclusion they draw seems to make sense.

What is the 'fix', the cops go out and snatch a couple of blacks off the street and seat them on the jury?

Simply knowing 'why' does not necessarily translate into knowing what to do to fix it. They did not provide a solution, but they were/are not looking for a solution.

It is possible they were first tacking down if there is an issue.
 
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