Working Paper: NBER ID: w16366
Authors: Shamena Anwar; Patrick Bayer; Randi Hjalmarsson
Abstract: This paper examines the impact of jury racial composition on trial outcomes using a unique data set of felony trials in Florida between 2000 and 2010. We utilize a research design that exploits day-to-day variation in the composition of the jury pool to isolate quasi-random variation in the composition of the seated jury, finding evidence that: (i) juries formed from all-white jury pools convict black defendants significantly (16 percentage points) more often than white defendants and (ii) this gap in conviction rates is entirely eliminated when the jury pool includes at least one black member. The impact of jury race is much greater than what a simple correlation of the race of the seated jury and conviction rates would suggest. These findings imply that the application of justice is highly uneven and raise obvious concerns about the fairness of trials in jurisdictions with a small proportion of blacks in the jury pool.
Keywords: jury racial composition; trial outcomes; criminal justice; conviction rates
JEL Codes: H1; J71; K0; K14; K40; K41
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| day-to-day variation in the composition of the jury pool (K16) | composition of the seated jury (K41) |
| composition of the jury pool (K16) | conviction rates for black defendants (K14) |
| composition of the jury pool (K16) | conviction rates for white defendants (K14) |
| presence of black jurors (K40) | trial outcomes (C90) |
| racial composition of the jury pool (J79) | application of justice (K40) |
| low black representation in the jury pool (K16) | fairness in trials (K41) |