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Racism and privilege

One of the cases cited in the report was William Andrews in Utah. Interesting.
 
One Brow said:
https://today.duke.edu/2012/04/jurystudy

When you have an all-white jury, the conviction rate for black people goes up, and for white people goes down, compared to when there are black people in the jury pool.
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Interesting that it references the jury pool rather than the actual jury that is seated. There are typically 27 in the pool, from which 6 are chosen to be seated on the jury (plus alternates). And the local population in the 2 counties studied is less than 5% black.

More interesting stuff from the Duke report:

Among the key findings:
-- In cases with no blacks in the jury pool, blacks were convicted 81 percent of the time, and whites were convicted 66 percent of the time. The estimated difference in conviction rates rises to 16 percent when the authors controlled for the age and gender of the jury and the year and county in which the trial took place.

-- When the jury pool included at least one black person, the conviction rates were nearly identical: 71 percent for black defendants, 73 percent for whites.

-- About 40 percent of the jury pools they examined had no black members and most of the others had one or two black members.

-- When blacks were in the jury pool, they were slightly more likely to be seated on a jury than whites. The eligible jury population in these counties was less than 5 percent black.
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I wonder what the overall racial breakdown is for those two counties - less than 5% black probably does not mean greater than 95% white, I would imagine there are Hispanics and other minorities in the mix.

But that is quite an influence exerted by those 1 or 2 black people in the jury pool. Not sure what exactly it means, but they are having some major influence if just by their presence in a group of 27 they can change the outcomes of the trials so dramatically, even if they're not on the actual jury.


Black privilege?

:wink:


Or perhaps a degree of political correctness? Or maybe a humanizing effect of seeing a black person as a potential juror that lessens in some small degree some inherent racial bias among the others?
 
moevillini said:
Black privilege?

:wink:


Or perhaps a degree of political correctness? Or maybe a humanizing effect of seeing a black person as a potential juror that lessens in some small degree some inherent racial bias among the others?
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Since the conviction rates go from bascally equal when the black member is present, to very unequal when not, I find the first unlikely. The second two are in some ways the same thing.
 
One Brow said:
Since the conviction rates go from bascally equal when the black member is present, to very unequal when not, I find the first unlikely. The second two are in some ways the same thing.
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If you wanted a fair comparison you would have to analyze all black jurys conviction rates for black and white defendants. Since there are probably no stats like that it makes it easy for you play it off as unlikely.

Political correctness is not humanizing.
 
Stoked said:
If you wanted a fair comparison you would have to analyze all black jurys conviction rates for black and white defendants. Since there are probably no stats like that it makes it easy for you play it off as unlikely.
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This comment makes me think you didn't understand what I said.

Stoked said:
Political correctness is not humanizing.
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Political correctness is one person's term for another person's request to treat humans with the respect they deserve as humans.
 
Just another anecdote.

I got a call from the school security officer today. My daughter's boyfriend was identified as being involved in some altercation in a park about a mile from where we live. Since he was in our house at the time, we were able to substantiate his alibi.

This is routine stuff, of course.
 
I wonder what the percentage of false convictions were. I didn't read the whole thing, so it might be in there, but is there any way to validate the results of the different juries? Are a much larger percentage of all-white juries falsely convicting, or was the conviction still warranted, and vice versa? It seems there is an underlying assumption that the 81% conviction rate with all-white juries is "wrong" and the 71% with at least one black on the jury is "right". In other words the assumption is that since the conviction rate is higher with an all-white jury it automatically means a higher false-conviction rate, while the lower conviction rate with at least one black juror is a lower false conviction rate, but is that really accurate? Is there any data showing false conviction rates, either way (convicting when innocent, acquitting when guilty)?
 
One Brow said:
This comment makes me think you didn't understand what I said.



Political correctness is one person's term for another person's request to treat humans with the respect they deserve as humans.
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No it is not. It is one persons attempt to control the words and thoughts of another based on how that first person views the world.
 
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