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The Impact of Jury Race in Criminal Trials

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  • Shamena Anwar
  • Patrick Bayer
  • Randi Hjalmarsson

Abstract

This article examines the impact of jury racial composition on trial outcomes using a data set of felony trials in Florida between 2000 and 2010. We use 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. Copyright 2012, Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Shamena Anwar & Patrick Bayer & Randi Hjalmarsson, 2012. "The Impact of Jury Race in Criminal Trials," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(2), pages 1017-1055.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:127:y:2012:i:2:p:1017-1055
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/qje/qjs014
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    JEL classification:

    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing
    • K0 - Law and Economics - - General
    • K14 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Criminal Law
    • K40 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - General
    • K41 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Litigation Process

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