Representative Jury Requirement: Jury Representativeness and Cross Sectional Participation From the Beginning to the End of the Jury Selection Process

• NCJ Number: 180026
• Journal: International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice Volume: 23 Issue: 1 Dated: Spring 1999 Pages: 55-90
• Author(s): Hiroshi Fukurai
• Date Published: 1999
• Length: 36 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article examines the ways in which facially neutral procedures fail to secure representative jury pools.

Abstract

The article contains a brief overview of constitutional law relevant to impartial juries, especially the fair cross-section doctrine that is the focus of contemporary jury selection procedures. It also provides critical analyses of the cumulative effects of screening mechanisms in jury selection. The paper assesses jury compositions by looking at demographic, socioeconomic, and ideological profiles of prospective jurors, illustrating that those jury profiles do not necessarily reflect cross-sectional representation of the community population at comprehensive stages of the jury selection process. Unless some deep-seated reforms are made to eliminate effects of selection biases and correct representative imbalances of jury wheels, qualified pools, jury panels and trial juries, historically underrepresented groups such as racial minorities, the poor and part-time employees will continue to be underrepresented on juries. Tables, notes, references