Jury Selection

It is universal to see people obtain knowledge on micro-blog services by asking others decision making questions. In this paper, we study the Jury Selection Problem(JSP) by utilizing crowdsourcing for decision making tasks on micro-blog services. Specifically, the problem is to enroll a subset of crowd under a limited budget, whose aggregated wisdom via Majority Voting scheme has the lowest probability of drawing a wrong answer(Jury Error Rate-JER). Due to various individual error-rates of the crowd, the calculation of JER is non-trivial. Firstly, we explicitly state that JER is the probability when the number of wrong jurors is larger than half of the size of a jury. To avoid the exponentially increasing calculation of JER, we propose two efficient algorithms and an effective bounding technique. Furthermore, we study the Jury Selection Problem on two crowdsourcing models, one is for altruistic users(AltrM) and the other is for incentive-requiring users(PayM) who require extra payment when enrolled into a task. For the AltrM model, we prove the monotonicity of JER on individual error rate and propose an efficient exact algorithm for JSP. For the PayM model, we prove the NP-hardness of JSP on PayM and propose an efficient greedy-based heuristic algorithm. Finally, we conduct a series of experiments to investigate the traits of JSP, and validate the efficiency and effectiveness of our proposed algorithms on both synthetic and real micro-blog data.

Recent advances in crowdsourcing technologies enable computationally challenging tasks (e.g., sentiment analysis and entity resolution) to be performed by Internet workers, driven mainly by monetary incentives. A fundamental question is: how should workers be selected, so that the tasks in hand can be accomplished successfully and economically? In this paper, we study the Jury Selection Problem (JSP): Given a monetary budget, and a set of decision-making tasks (e.g., “Is Bill Gates still the CEO of Microsoft now?”), return the set of workers (called jury), such that their answers yield the highest “Jury Quality” (or JQ). Existing JSP solutions make use of the Majority Voting (MV) strategy, which uses the answer chosen by the largest number of workers. We show that MV does not yield the best solution for JSP. We further prove that among all voting strategies (including deterministic and randomizedstrategies), BayesianVoting(BV)canoptimallysolveJSP. We then examine how to solve JSP based on BV. This is technically challenging, since computing the JQ with BV is NP-hard. We solve this problem by proposing an approximate algorithm that is computationally efficient. Our approximate JQ computation algorithm is also highly accurate, and its error is proved to be bounded within 1%. We extend our solution by considering the task owner’s “belief” (or prior) on the answers of the tasks. Experiments on synthetic and real datasets show that our new approach is consistently better than the best JSP solution known.

Actual venire members ( N = 764) completed the Big Five Inventory before going through the jury selection process for 1 of 11 criminal or 17 civil trials. Jury selection decisions by attorneys were not associated with juror personality traits but were associated with juror race and sex, especially in criminal cases. In the 17 juries that deliberated to a verdict (n = 285), high levels of juror extraversion were associated with not guilty verdicts or verdicts for the defendant, especially in criminal cases. Extraversion was also associated with being selected as a jury foreperson, and foreperson extraversion was associated with longer jury deliberation times and perceived foreperson influence in criminal cases.

The legal system is a domain of potential relevance for psychologists, whether in the capacity of expert witness or citizen juror. In this article, the authors apply a psychological framework to legal debate surrounding the impact of race on the process of jury selection. More specifically, the authors consider race and the peremptory challenge, the procedure by which attorneys may remove prospective jurors without explanation. This debate is addressed from a psychological perspective by (a) examining traditional justifications for the practice of the peremptory challenge, (b) reviewing research regarding the influence of race on social judgment, (c) considering empirical investigations that examine directly race and peremptory challenge use, and (d) assessing current jury selection procedures intended to curtail racial discrimination. These analyses converge to suggest that the discretionary nature of the peremptory challenge renders it precisely the type of judgment most likely to be biased by race. The need for additional psychological investigation of race and jury selection is emphasized, and specific avenues for such research are identified.

Given the importance of trial consultants to the modern day practice of law, Scientific Jury Selection is designed to be informative for psychologists, other professionals interested in trial consulting (e.g., sociologists, communication experts, marketing researchers, psychiatrists, and social workers), and attorneys. The authors provide a thorough review of the most common techniques used to select jurors, and a critical evaluation of the ultimate effectiveness of these methods. This critique is based upon an examination of the social science literature. Psychologists and other social scientists as well as practicing trial consultants who read the book should gain a better understanding of the current state of research relevant to scientific jury selection, and areas where new research needs to be conducted to advance the field. Attorneys who read the book should be better able to decide whether or not to hire consultants to assist in future litigation, and if so, what types of services these consultants should provide.

Models of the jury selection process in a Federal District Court are developed from court records, legal standards, and other information and then compared to determine sources of bias. The jury selection plan developed by the court has been operationally reformulated using 1970 census data to identify bias resulting from even a fair application of the plan. This normative model is also used to test for biases in the procedures and the results of the 1970 plan implementation in Eastern Massachusetts based on voter registration lists. Findings support the hypothesis that the juror selection process effectively discriminates against the poor, the young, racial minorities, women, and persons with low and high educational attainment. Sources of bias are found in the use of outdated voter registration lists, unreturned jury qualification questionnaires, and the excuse process. Recommendations are given for ways to reduce the extent of this bias.

The jury system evolved as an essential ingredient of America's judicial framework. In recent years, however, frailties of the jury system in respect to its lack of fairness for women, Blacks, Latinos, and the poor have increasingly become the center of controversy. Federal law is clear that these groups have the right to participate in court as jurors, according to two key concepts: There must be a random selection of jurors, and it must be representative within specified geographic districts wherein a particular court convenes (U.S. 90th Congress House Report, 1968: Section 1961 ). The logic is that qualified residents of a given geographic domain should be part of the pool from which a jury is selected -- on the basis of a chance-opportunity for each to serve on a jury panel. Recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have held that any substantial violation of these basic requirements of representativeness in jury selection is a prima facie case of discrimination (Alker & Barnard, 1978; Fukurai & Butler, 1987; Fukarai, Butler, & Krooth, in press; Horowitz, 1980).Challenges concerned with the underrepresentation of minorities have been brought claiming violation of the Sixth Amendment, which requires a representative jury selection from a fair cross-section of the community (Burns, 1987; Jalee, 1968). Yet, the lack of a fair cross-section has been shown in a variety of cases. Careful research indicates that discrimination in jury selection procedures occurs by gender, age, race, and socioeconomic status (Carp, 1982, pp. 257-277; Chevigny, 1975, pp. 157-172; Diamond, 1980, pp. 85-117; Fukurai, Butler, & Huebner-Dimitrius, 1987; Fukurai,Butler, & Krooth, 1991).In terms of the race of em paneled juries, however, the literature deals almost exclusively with the surface phenomenon of the lack of adequate Black representation. Clearly more elaborate research on judicial disenfranchisement is needed to examine the social mechanisms that produce and maintain the subservient condition of Black people, women, and other U.S. citizens with Third World backgrounds. This is particularly important because there has been a paucity of research examining the impact of the social and structural mechanisms that historically have perpetuated the subordination of Blacks in the jury system and jury selection.The next section provides the theoretical synthesis to the problematique of judicial inequities in the jury system and jury selection by examining four specific determinants of disproportionate racial representation on juries: (a) racial discrimination in jury selection procedures, (b) socioeconomic barriers preventing full community participation by Blacks and other racial minorities, (c) judicial discrimination that allows racially demarcated jury representation, and (d) institutional racism and bureaucratic discrimination in perpetuating judicial inequality. The reminder of this article, then, demonstrates that there still exists a racially demarcated jury system that systematically discriminates against Blacks and their full jury participation.

Social scientists have recently generated a great deal of publicity by their involvement in jury selection. This paper describes the components of the methodology used. Then both practical and conceptual difficulties with each component are discussed. It is noted that there is little empirical support for any of the components or for the method as a whole. Finally, some of the legal and ethical implications of the methodology are treated.

The United States Supreme Court has restricted attorneys from considering the gender and race of potential jurors in their use of peremptory challenges—the practice by which jurors may be removed from a jury without explanation or evidence of potential bias. We propose that forbidding peremptories based on social category information not only fails to decrease biased jury selection, but also encourages attorneys to search—successfully—for neutral justifications for their biased decisions. In Study 1, participants who acted as prosecutors in a jury selection paradigm eliminated female jurors more often than male jurors, but then justified these biased choices by citing gender-neutral information. Troublingly, Study 2 showed that explicit instructions against the use of gender failed to eliminate selection bias, and in fact resulted in even more elaborate justifications. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Beginning with such famous cases as the Harrisburg conspiracy trial, the use of "scientific" jury selection has gained wide publicity and numerous advocates. Both profit and nonprofit organizations are increasingly offering such services for "good" causes and/or hard cash. Yet no rigorous evaluation of scientific jury selection has ever been undertaken, and impressionistic data on its effectiveness are at best equivocal. In an effort to present a more balanced assessment, this paper undertakes a consciously skeptical examination of the kinds of survey data routinely used to inform the juror- selection process.