Beyond a reasonable doubt: the impact of jurors’ political affiliations on jury trials. Evidence from North Carolina
Beyond a reasonable doubt: the impact of jurors’ political affiliations on jury trials. Evidence from North Carolina
This article evaluates the impact of jurors’ political affiliations on jury trial verdicts in
the US state of North Carolina. The research design relies on the day-to-day random variation in the composition of jury pools. The results indicate that if there is one additional independent juror in the jury pool, the percentage of guilty verdicts decreases by 2.93% and the conviction rate of 2.85 percentage points. The impact of democratic jurors is negative but non-statistically significant. I also evaluate the presence of possible political discrimination in jurors’ striking patterns. Democratic jurors are 3.7 percentage points more likely to be removed from the seated jury. At the same time, the results for Independent jurors are positive but non-statistically significant. I implement a set of heterogeneity checks and a set of robustness checks. I also replicate (with similar results) the analysis for the seated jury composition, using jury pools’ political affiliation as an instrument for the political affiliation composition of seated juries.
Foresta, Alessandra
aaf8f667-e9bb-410d-bedc-da9bd6fff3bc
Foresta, Alessandra
aaf8f667-e9bb-410d-bedc-da9bd6fff3bc
Foresta, Alessandra
(2024)
Beyond a reasonable doubt: the impact of jurors’ political affiliations on jury trials. Evidence from North Carolina.
Journal of Law and Economics.
(In Press)
Abstract
This article evaluates the impact of jurors’ political affiliations on jury trial verdicts in
the US state of North Carolina. The research design relies on the day-to-day random variation in the composition of jury pools. The results indicate that if there is one additional independent juror in the jury pool, the percentage of guilty verdicts decreases by 2.93% and the conviction rate of 2.85 percentage points. The impact of democratic jurors is negative but non-statistically significant. I also evaluate the presence of possible political discrimination in jurors’ striking patterns. Democratic jurors are 3.7 percentage points more likely to be removed from the seated jury. At the same time, the results for Independent jurors are positive but non-statistically significant. I implement a set of heterogeneity checks and a set of robustness checks. I also replicate (with similar results) the analysis for the seated jury composition, using jury pools’ political affiliation as an instrument for the political affiliation composition of seated juries.
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Foresta2024
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Accepted/In Press date: 22 June 2024
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 494474
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/494474
ISSN: 0022-2186
PURE UUID: 161589b0-089e-41dd-bbbf-62200f404027
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Date deposited: 09 Oct 2024 16:38
Last modified: 10 Oct 2024 02:05
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Author:
Alessandra Foresta
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