RAPID: The Impact of Bans on Peremptory Challenges On Voir Dire, Jury Composition, and Case Outcomes

RAPID：禁令对强制性挑战对预案、陪审团组成和案件结果的影响

• 批准号: 2202144
• 负责人: Jessica Salerno
• 金额: $ 19.98万
• 依托单位: Arizona State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-12-01 至 2024-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2202144&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RAPID; Impact; Bans; Peremptory; Challenges

Despite decades of effort aimed at reducing disparities in the American legal system, they persist. Certain demographic groups are overrepresented in prisons and among those falsely convicted, due, in part, to their continually being underrepresented on juries. Increased diversity on juries improves the quality of deliberation and reduces bias in jury decisions—but prosecutors’ use of peremptory challenges is a primary mechanism for creating disparities on juries. Prosecutors strike jurors from some groups at higher rates and successfully provide neutral reasons when challenged. Arizona is about to take a truly transformative step by banning peremptory challenges, a ground-breaking reform taking effect on January 1st, 2022. The stated goal of the ban is to combat bias in jury selection; the assumption being that this will increase jury diversity and reduce bias in verdicts. This project advances basic science on diversity, group decision-making, and combating bias in a real-world setting. It tests whether a structural change to the jury selection process alters how jury selection decisions are made and the downstream consequences for diversity and bias on juries. It tests whether racial discrimination in jury selection persists because attorneys shift their tendency to offer compelling neutral justifications for excluding jurors of some groups from peremptory challenges to challenges for cause. This project furthers NSF values of combating bias and promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion by testing the impact of a large-scale ground-breaking intervention designed to do just that in the legal system. This project also creates important databases for future research and involve many members of underrepresented groups as research assistants in every stage of the research. This rule change presents an important and ephemeral opportunity to collect data on voir dire practices, composition of juries, and case outcomes before and after this change. This transdisciplinary, multi-method project is designed to achieve the following research aims: (1) test whether Superior Court juries are significantly more diverse and representative after the peremptory challenge ban, (2) test whether conviction or liability rates in cases with defendants of some groups will significantly decrease after the peremptory challenge ban, (3) test whether the percentage of persons of some groups excused for hardship/cause will significantly increase after the peremptory challenge ban is enacted, thereby mitigating the overall impact of the ban, (4) test whether the way challenges for cause are argued and decided in court changes after the peremptory challenge ban is enacted in ways that mitigate the overall impact of the ban, and (5) conduct interviews with judges and attorneys regarding how they might alter their jury selection strategies in ways that limit the impact of the ban on overall jury composition.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

尽管旨在减少美国法律体系差异的数十年努力，但它们仍然存在。某些人口群体在监狱中的代表人数过多，而在错误地定罪的部分原因是由于他们不断地对法学人的代表不足。法学生的多样性提高改善了审议的质量，并减少了陪审团决定中的偏见，但是检察官使用强制性挑战是在法学家中造成差距的主要机制。检察官以较高的速度从某些团体中罢工陪审员，并在受到挑战时成功提供中性原因。亚利桑那州即将通过禁止强制性挑战迈出真正的变革性，这是一项开创性的改革，于2022年1月1日生效。该禁令的既定目标是在陪审团选择中打击偏见。假设这将增加陪审团的多样性并减少判决中的偏见。该项目在现实世界中的多样性，群体决策和抗击偏见方面推进了基础科学。它测试了果汁选择过程的结构变化是否改变了如何做出果汁选择决策，以及对陪审团多样性和偏见的下游后果。它测试了果汁选择中的种族歧视是否持续存在，因为律师转移了他们提供令人信服的中性理由，以将某些群体的陪审员从强制性挑战中排除到挑战的挑战。该项目通过测试旨在在法律体系中做到这一点的大规模开创性干预措施的影响，进一步促进了NSF的抵抗偏见和促进公平，多样性和包容性的价值。该项目还为未来的研究创建了重要的数据库，并在研究的每个阶段都将许多人为群体的许多成员作为研究助理。该规则更改为收集有关Voir Dire实践，陪审团组成以及此更改之前和之后的案件结果的数据提供了一个重要的短暂机会。这个跨学科的多方法项目旨在实现以下研究的目的：（1）测试高等法院法院是否明显更大的潜水员和在强制性挑战禁令后代表，（（2）测试某些群体被告的案件中的定罪或责任率是否会显着减少，在某些团体中是否会大幅度降低某些挑战的障碍，（3）竞争者是否有效地提高了竞争的百分比，（3）是否有很多责任，（3）是否有责任感，（3）是否有责任感。缓解禁令的总体影响，（4）测试是否在法庭上进行挑战和在法庭上的挑战挑战禁令的辩论和决定是否以减轻禁令的整体影响制定，以及（5）对法官和律师进行访谈，以限制对果汁的限制，并限制了对诚实的宣布的影响。通过基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响评估标准通过评估来支持。