NCJ Number
72218
Journal
Judicature Volume: 64 Issue: 3 Dated: (September 1980) Pages: 132-139
Date Published
1980
Length
8 pages
Annotation
While juries in Birmingham, England, are not necessarily representative of the community, such distortions produced no significant variation in verdicts in this study of 3,912 jurors.
Abstract
New jury selection techniques involving psychological tests and other techniques attempting to link behavior and jurors' personal backgrounds have failed because a jury's choice of a verdict is more complex than psychological tests are able to predict. Moreover, studies on U.S. juror behavior contradict each other or indicate that the weight of evidence in a case determines the decision. However, no studies into juror decisions had been done in Great Britain until 1975-1976, when background information on 3,912 jurors was collected and analyzed in an attempt to discover the relationship between verdicts and the age and sex of jurors. In Great Britain, jurors are chosen from the electoral roll, and prosecution and defense are permitted few challenges. The law aims at juries as representative as possible of the community. However, British juries are unrepresentative in that they are predominantly male and white. Defendants and the prosecution are permitted scant knowledge about jurors, and thus jury rigging is discouraged. Nevertheless, other research indicates that challenges scarcely affect the composition of British juries because they are so infrequently used. Also, the verdict has little to do with the sex or age of jurors, except in a few kinds of crimes. Finally, a disproportionate number of jury foremen are white male professionals. Overall, the heterogeneous character of English juries appears to produce verdicts reflecting more the unique social mix than the broad social characteristics of individuals on the panel. Footnotes and a table are included.