CAN RACIAL BIAS ON JURY PANELS BE MODERATED

Does racial bias among Caucasian jurors still exist on jury panels, and if so, under what conditions?. Half of the jurors were given written case summaries involving a white defendant an

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BE MODERATED?

By Jan Mills Spaeth, Ph.D., Advanced Jury Research

This article was published in THE WRIT, the official publication of the Pima County Bar Association, in March, 2002 This is a brief synopsis of a research study.

Does racial bias among Caucasian jurors still exist on jury panels, and if so, under what conditions? An interesting study was published by Samuel Sommers and Phoebe Ellsworth,

researchers at the University of Michigan, in the March, 2001 Psychology, Public Policy, and Law

publication

In this study, almost 200 Caucasian participants were given written accounts of an interracial assault between members of a basketball team Half of the jurors were given written case summaries involving a white defendant and a black victim, while the other jurors received summaries reversing this status

In order to emphasize race as an important issue, half of the written summaries provided information about the defendant's cultural isolation, including racial remarks and unfair criticism by teammates In the remaining half, this information was not provided in the written summaries In other words, race was made a pertinent issue for half of the jurors, but not an important issue for the remaining half

Thus, there were two dependent measures in this study: a) whether the defendant was white and the victim was black, or vice versa, and b) whether or not race was emphasized as an important issue in the case

This study showed some interesting results When race was emphasized as a leading issue, both the white defendant and the black defendant were convicted at similar rates However, when the race issue was not in the foreground, 90% of the mock jurors convicted the black defendant, whereas only 70% convicted the white defendant

What do these results tell us? This study suggests that when race is made an issue in the case, jurors make more of an effort to set aside biases When it is not addressed directly, race is a

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American Society of Trial Consultants American Psychological Association American College of Forensic Examiners P.O Box 91410, Tucson, AZ 85752-1410 (520) 297-4131 Fax (520) 797-4213, jms@adjuryresearch.com

Can Racial Bias On Jury Panels Be Moderated?, Jan Mills Spaeth, Page 2

factor that can trigger subtle, unconscious, and negative reactions in white jurors What does this

mean for jury selection? In cases involving parties of different races, it is important for attorneys representing those of a minority race to directly address the race issue and bias potential in the voir dire process, even if race is not a pertinent issue Jurors need to be consciously reminded to avoid racial bias in order to effectively do so

Based on this research, the researchers have also encouraged courts to uphold Batson vs.

Kentucky in order to increase the diversity of juror ethnicity and race As put by Sommers,

"individual jurors might be less likely to act on prejudicial beliefs when their fellow jurors are not all the same race as they are" While this is not surprising, reminders are helpful at times

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