Jury Administration Reforms

Legal and Theoretical Basis for Administrative Reforms

The U.S. Supreme Court first ruled that African Americans could not be systematically excluded from the jury pool on the basis of race in 1880, but widespread efforts to ensure a demographically representative jury pool began in earnest only with the civil rights and women's rights movements during the mid-20th century. The legal principle requiring a racially and ethnically diverse jury pool derives mainly from the Sixth Amendment requirement that criminal defendants be tried by “a fair and impartial jury,” which the U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted as a jury selected from “a fair cross-section of the community.”

The principle is premised on the belief that a jury that reflects a broad spectrum of life experiences and viewpoints is less likely to succumb to unchallenged assumptions or biases during deliberations. This understanding is supported by a substantial body of empirical research concerning the implications of the story model of juror decision making, which posits that jurors filter trial evidence as it is presented through a preexisting framework of life experiences, opinions, and attitudes (e.g., how the world works, how people interact, etc.), which in turn affects the inferences that each juror takes away from that evidence. During deliberations, jurors have the opportunity to present competing interpretations of evidence and discuss their credibility in the context of the entire case and come to a consensus about the facts and the appropriate application of law to those facts in their verdicts. Due to the widespread public acceptance of this premise, courts have also justified administrative reforms to the jury system to bolster public perceptions of the fairness and legitimacy of jury verdicts produced by diverse and representative juries.

A secondary principle—tangentially related to the first—is that jury service is a civic obligation that all citizens must be prepared to undertake if the American justice system is to continue to uphold its democratic ideals. This principle derives less from specific constitutional requirements and more from the belief that a well-functioning democracy engages citizens across every dimension of cultural identity, socioeconomic status, and political orientation in a process of shared decision making. Thus, no segment of society should [Page 400]be considered too marginal or too elite to be spared from the basic task of jury service.

A number of institutional and social factors affect citizens' ability and willingness to serve, and they often have a disproportionate effect on minority populations. For example, voter registration lists, the most popular source list for compiling the master jury list, have long been criticized for overrepresenting populations that are older, more affluent, and highly educated and being less representative of minorities. The high mobility rates of youth and lower-income individuals result in substantial numbers of jury summonses—on average, 15% nationally—being returned as undeliverable by the U.S. Postal Service. Some qualification criteria, such as citizenship and English language fluency, disproportionately exclude Hispanic, Asian, and other immigrant populations. Occupational exemptions for various types of professionals place a disproportionate burden of jury service on those who do not qualify for an exemption. The length of time that citizens are required to serve can last up to 6 months or more in some jurisdictions, and juror fees rarely cover more than daily travel and out-of-pocket expenses. Consequently, an average of 9% of prospective jurors are excused for hardship. Another 9% of individuals—again disproportionately lower income and less educated—fail to respond to their jury summonses.

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