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The Effect of Deliberation on Jurors’ Attitudes toward Jury Service in Criminal Cases

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 December 2020

Liana Pennington  and
Matthew J. Dolliver
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Abstract

Jury service is one important way that citizens actively involve themselves in the criminal justice system. At a time when criminal justice and legal institutions are suffering from declining levels of public trust, it is crucial to understand the effects of jury service on individuals’ views of the jury system and whether these views vary across different racial groups. This article uses survey data from 248 deliberating and prospective jurors on criminal cases with matched data before and after jury service to examine jurors’ views of jury service. Unlike most research in this area, actual jurors were surveyed both at the beginning and at the end of the jury process to measure changes in attitudes concerning jury participation. Deliberating jurors’ changes in views were compared with a group of prospective jurors not selected for a trial. We found a significant difference between deliberating jurors and prospective jurors concerning their belief that the jury system is the fairest way to decide criminal cases, suggesting that jury service positively affects jurors’ views of the jury system. Racial group membership did not significantly influence change from pretrial to posttrial views, with views of jury service becoming more positive for both white and nonwhite jurors.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , May 2021 , pp. 391 - 406
Copyright
© 2020 American Bar Foundation

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Footnotes

This research was supported by the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Alabama and by Saint Anselm College. We would like to thank the many jurors who participated in this research as well as the editors and anonymous reviewers at Law & Social Inquiry for their helpful comments.

References

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