Race, Diversity, and Jury Composition: Battering and Bolstering Legitimacy

Impartiality is both elusive and important for the legitimacy of the jury and its decisions. After presenting a realistic version of impartiality that recognizes how jurors reach judgments, we present empirical evidence demonstrating the costs incurred when the promise of impartiality appears to be violated. We then evaluate various approaches aimed primarily at increasing the racial heterogeneity of juries. Finally, we describe a simplified, multimethod approach that combines improvements in source lists and a simple non-race-based geographic adjustment to improve the appearance and reality of jury impartiality by increasing jury heterogeneity.