CHAPTER APPLICATION PAPER: JURY SELECTION, JURIES AND JUDGES
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Submit a formal research paper (10-15 pages), which is worth 45% of your course grade. Your paper needs to analyze the jury selection process and its relationship to both (a)
Constitutional law, and (b) an allied field (e.g., education, history, law enforcement, public administration, public policy, psychology, sociology, technology, etc.).
For this assignment, due in Week 8:
Within your research paper, you must discuss:
Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States
Peremptory challenges
Challenge for cause
Whether jurors may testify about their deliberations in the event of possible racial or ethnic bias
Racial or ethnic bias
Whether virtual jury trials comply with the fairness and impartiality goals of the Sixth Amendment.
Also address other subtopics that relate to the allied field requiredcomponent.
Within that context, be sure to critically analyze at least:
1. four cases (three of which must be from 1990 to the present) that show how the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled in efforts to achieve the Sixth Amendment's chief goal.
(Make sure that all of your cases are still good law.)
2. five law review or other academic quality journal articles regarding criminal jury selection and the Sixth Amendment.
NOTE 1: At least eight of these resources must support your paper's thesis statement.
NOTE 2: Additional academic quality resources are welcome for use in your research paper, too.
General Guidelines for the research paper:
1. Write an introduction, which clearly identifies the topic of your report and the issues that you are illuminating. The introduction should include: (a) the thesis statement (basis of your
report), as well as (b) a preview of your major points. 2. The body of your report should be dedicated to supporting your thesis statement with claims gleaned from: (a) your research
into what others have written on the topic and data that you have gathered, (b) the course materials and discussions, (c) law, as well as (d) law review and other kinds of scholarly
resources.
You must identify the issues associated with your thesis statement and the above-mentioned required components for the research paper. Similarly, you must analyze the arguments on
these issues, as well as discuss the current status of the law. You also need to discuss any current pending cases and unresolved legal questions. Finally, you will discuss how the jury
selection process should change the law, if at all.
3. Conclude your research paper by recapitulating your thesis and explaining in greater detail the significance of your findings, even if those findings are not what you had originally
expected. If you would like, include within your conclusion some questions or recommendations about the jury selection process.
4. Your research paper must be well-organized, grammatically correct, and precisely-written so that your audience (whoever might read it) can understand easily the meaning that you are
trying to convey to them. As the research paper's author, you are the subject matter expert; convey that expertise (which you will gain through your research and analysis) to your audience
through your graduate level writing.
Therefore, be sure to allow plenty of time for the editing phase of your writing process. Give yourself at least twice the amount of time that it took you to write the first draft to conduct
the editing phase. Review your work carefully and repeatedly. Please see the rubric so that you know how to earn "Exemplary".
NOTE 3: Legal Studies students must provide all citations to be in Bluebook style; this means that footnotes (at the bottom of the page) are required. (Non-Legal Studies students may
use APA style, which requires endnotes at the end of your report.)
- Both citation styles require the use of quotation marks and a pinpoint citation to the page on which the quotation can be found in its original source for eachquotation that you use.
- Avoid using more than one quotation for roughly every 10 pages of text in the main body your research paper.
NOTE 4: You must approach this research project objectively; let what you learn through your research and analytical efforts guide you to the actual answers to the question(s) raised in or
by your thesis statement.
Jury Selection Process
The Sixth Amendment guarantees the rights to criminal defendants. These rights include the
right to an impartial jury.(Cornell University Law School, 2015)In the American justice
system a trial by jury is to help prevent unfair trials. The jurors are responsible for
, CHAPTER APPLICATION PAPER: JURY SELECTION, JURIES AND JUDGES
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determining whether or not the accused defendant is guilty or not guilty of said crimes.
Hence, the jury selection process is very important in the same aspect as to making sure there
are no bias unfair opinions that would cloud the decision making process, making sure to a
fair trial. It is very important that discrimination does not play a part in court and in the
sentencing processes. Along side the process of jury selection also being discussed will be
jury nullification, peremptory challenges, and cases that have helped to control systematic
discrimination of the courts process. Depending on the state, a jury of six to twelve people is
chosen from a jury pool. Any American that is registered to vote or has a driver’s license can
be called to serve on a jury. The size may also have to do with the type of case and trial it is
as well. The group is then asked if they have any knowledge on the case, then asked questions
about themselves or any possible specific experiences that could give them certain biased
opinions towards the case. This is known as voir dire (speak the truth). If there is any reason
to believe the juror could be prejudiced in any way the lawyer can ask the judge to dismiss
the juror for cause. In addition to the challenges for cause there is peremptory challenges.
Each lawyer is given so many peremptory challenges, which allows the lawyer to excuse a
possible juror without stating a cause. Depending on the case being tried determines how
many peremptory challenges will be allowed.(American Bar Association, 2015)
Discriminations in our jury process have long been documented in our past. Such cases like
the Scottsboro case. The case included nine young African American males in the 1930s
thatwere convicted of raping two white girls. All defendants were tried by an all-white juror
