I want to focus my remarks on the question, “Why do people conduct jury studies?” After all, as Kadane (this book) has noted, jury decisions affect only a small fraction – far less than 10% – of the cases that enter the criminal or civil justice systems. There are arguably four or five other decision points in the criminal justice system and several in the civil justice system that are more important in terms of processing cases and affecting the lives of individual citizens.

To improve the law

First, people conduct studies of juror and jury decisions to influence the law and to improve jury performance. People with this goal want their social science to be relevant to their lives by offering ways to make the world a better place. Studies that reflect this urge embody the belief that social science research is most worthwhile when it tells us directly something about the solution to a real-world problem or elucidates an issue of popular concern. For example, when the U.S. Supreme Court in Williams v. Florida (1970) appeared to rely on four seriously flawed empirical studies for the proposition that six-member juries were constitutionally permissible, social scientists – chiefly psychologists – responded with a flood of research on small groups and juries.