The Jury’s Role in Mass Incarceration
Open Access
- Author:
- Beamer, Haylee
- Area of Honors:
- Criminology
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Jeffrey Todd Ulmer, Thesis Supervisor
Stacy Silver, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Jury Trial
Jury
Jurors
Homicide - Abstract:
- The jury trial is a fundamental part of our criminal justice system. But, can a group of people who each have minimal legal knowledge, be capable of impartiality, or do preconceived notions and implicit biases take over? In conducting this study, my central focus was if the race and gender of a defendant would increase the likelihood that a jury would convict them. Based on previous research, mock juror studies demonstrate a racial bias, treating black defendants more harshly than white defendants. In the American criminal justice system, black defendants are typically targeted, found to be guilty more than white defendants, and sentenced disparately. Women tend to be sentenced more leniently in the criminal justice system, and in mock juror studies, they received slightly preferential treatment. My goal in conducting this study is to demonstrate the possible biases jurors may display and determine if jury trials are the best way to handle criminal cases. My data consists of jury trials for defendants charged with first-, second-, and third-degree murder, as well as criminal homicide in Pennsylvania from 2012-2016, coded by researchers for a previous study, from the Administrative Office of PA courts online docket transcripts. Results demonstrated that black defendants were more likely to be convicted of second-degree murder than white defendants when charged with second degree murder, but this result was not consistent in any other category of murder. Similar to this, females were more likely than males to be convicted of first-degree murder when charged with first degree murders, which was also not a consistent result in the other categories of murder. Ultimately this study showed that with any given jury, results are likely to vary. However, based on this study, jurors seemed to accurately convict defendants, with little to no bias present.