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From the Community to the Courtroom: Increasing Diversity and Access to the Jury Box

The greatest service of citizenship is jury duty.” - Abraham Lincoln

Resource List Webinars

Figuring out how to ensure jury diversity has plagued jurisdictions across the country for decades.  Barriers to jury diversity can range from systemic and institutional obstacles to the discriminatory use of peremptory strikes.  In this three-part webinar series titled “From the Community to the Courtroom: Increasing Diversity and Access to the Jury Box” the nation’s leading jury experts, scholars, and practitioners discussed why diverse juries matter, the challenges to achieving jury diversity, as well as what solutions and reforms are on the horizon. 

Session 1: Why Diverse Juries Matter

Panelists discuss the jury selection process, its many steps, and why representativeness matters in the jury box.

Feaured Speakers: Nina Chernoff - Professor at the CUNY School of Law (moderator); Paula Hannaford – Director, Center for Jury Studies Valerie Hans – Charles F. Rechlin Professor of Law, Cornell Law School 


Session 2: Ways to Increase Inclusiveness and Access to the Jury Box

Panelists discuss the many barriers people face in when trying to serve as jurors and what ways different stakeholders can increase inclusiveness and access.

Featured Speakers: Nina Chernoff - Professor at the CUNY School of Law (moderator); Jamie Binnall – Associate Professor of Law, Criminology, and Criminal Justice at California State University, Long Beach; Jasmine Gonzales Rose – Professor of Law,  Boston University School of Law, Deputy Director of Research & Policy, BU Center for Antiracist Research; Catherine Grosso – Professor of Law, Michigan State University College of Law and co-president of the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT); Barbara O’Brien – Professor of Law, Michigan State University College of Law.

 


Session 3: Batson and Beyond

Panelists discuss the use of peremptory challenges, the shortcomings of the Batson decision, and avenues for reform in an age of new technologies.

Featured Speakers: Nina Chernoff - Professor at the CUNY School of Law (moderator); Stephen Bright- Harvey L. Karp Visiting Lecturer in Law, Yale Law School, represented Timothy Foster in Foster v. Chapman; Brendon Woods – Chief Public Defender in Alameda County; Sonia Rankin –Associate Professor of Law, University of New Mexico School of Law 


Resources

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"At the trial of James Batson in 1982, the prosecution eliminated all the black jurors from the jury pool. Batson objected, setting off a complicated discussion about jury selection that would make its way all the way up to the Supreme Court. On this episode of More Perfect, the Supreme Court ruling that was supposed to prevent race-based jury selection, but may have only made the problem worse."  For more information, click here.


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