IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/jleorg/v12y1996i2p325-60.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Challenge of Peremptory Challenges

Author

Listed:
  • Schwartz, Edward P
  • Schwartz, Warren F

Abstract

The criminal jury system is characterized by two often conflicting features: (1) A very diverse population, like that in the United States, is likely to result in even rational, open-minded jurors disagreeing about issues fundamental to the resolution of any case, and (2) almost all jurisdictions require unanimity in order to either acquit or convict a defendant on any charge. Using a simple spatial model, we demonstrate how the existing allowance for numerous peremptory challenges facilitates the production of verdicts by eliminating potential jurors with "extreme" preferences; however, it does so by sacrificing any semblance of a democratically representative jury. We show that changing the decision rule governing the jury to simple majority rule also facilitates the production of verdicts without discriminating against potential jurors because of their anticipated preferences or beliefs. In addition, such a change would eliminate the inefficiencies associated with protracted jury selection and mistrials resulting from hung juries. Copyright 1996 by Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Schwartz, Edward P & Schwartz, Warren F, 1996. "The Challenge of Peremptory Challenges," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 12(2), pages 325-360, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:oup:jleorg:v:12:y:1996:i:2:p:325-60
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Francis X. Flanagan, 2015. "Peremptory Challenges and Jury Selection," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(2), pages 385-416.
    2. Alfredo Di Tillio & Marco Ottaviani & Peter Norman Sørensen, 2021. "Strategic Sample Selection," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(2), pages 911-953, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:jleorg:v:12:y:1996:i:2:p:325-60. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/jleo .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.