Catherine M. Grosso

Examining Jurors: Using Conversation Analysis to Explore the Influence of Race on Prosecutor Speech in North Carolina Capital Jury Selection

Stereotypes about which demographic groups are more or less likely to sentence a defendant to death operate as implicit starting hypotheses in capital cases, informing how attorneys examine jurors during voir dire. This hypotheses-influenced information reinforces the starting stereotypes and potentially exacerbates the influence of the stereotypes themselves on strike decisions. Evidence also suggests that both prosecutors and defense counsel use race as a proxy for bias despite the constitutional prohibition. In these instances, voir dire may serve as a tool to develop race-neutral justifications for the anticipated race-based strikes. In either instance, the voir dire process itself might contribute to the improper influence of race. This study of jury selection for 600 potential jurors across twelve randomly selected North Carolina capital cases uses conversation analysis to look behind the race effects observed in the exercise of peremptory strikes for evidence of ways race influences the process that produces those decisions. We adapted the Roter Interaction Analysis System, a widely used framework for understanding the dynamics of patient–clinician communication during clinical encounters and a framework with well-established reliability and predictive validity, to the legal setting for the first time. Under this rigorous and exacting method of conversation analysis, we assigned one of 46 mutually exclusive codes to every complete thought any speaker expressed. In the analysis presented here, we grouped these codes into mutually exclusive categories of speech based on content and affect. This created a “conversation profile” with four distinct components: education/orientation speech, data gathering speech, relationship building speech, and conflict speech. The findings presented here focus on prosecutors’ conversations with 179 black and white jurors eligible to be dismissed by a state peremptory strike. These findings begin to suggest ways in which the evaluation of fitness for jury service itself is skewed and contributes to racial disparities in jury selection. Prosecutors not only struck potential black jurors at a higher rate, they spoke differently to the black potential jurors they struck, and showed more conflict with black potential jurors overall. Moreover, the racial diversity of the panel of jurors affected the discourse: when the proportion of black potential jurors was bigger, prosecutors engaged in less education and orientation and more data gathering with the black potential jurors. While these findings echo or perhaps restate the overwhelming evidence of racial bias shown by disparate strikes, they provide new insight into ways in which prosecutors may be approaching the decision-making process differently for black and white potential jurors. The results presented here provide an important foundation for future research.

Human Rights and Norwegian Aid to the Palestinian Areas: A Self-Monitoring Exercise

This paper is an exercise in self-monitoring in the context of Norwegian aid to the emergent Palestinian authority in 1996. Both the size of Norways financial contribution (more than 150 million US dollars between 1993 and 1997) and the countrys diplomatic involvement in the establishment of the Palestinian authority suggested the value of a closer look at Norwegian principles of donor aid in general and aid to the Palestinian areas in particular. Self-monitoring here refers to an analysis of the consequences of Norways aid polices vis-a-vis the Palestinian areas. The purpose of the exercise is to examine qualitatively whether Norways stated human rights policies are followed up in a principled way. To make this assessment, the authors conducted in depth analyses of 28 Norwegian-funded projects in the Palestinian territories. The analysis included review of project descriptions prepared by Norwegian donor organizations and interviews with project implementers in Palestinian nongovernmental organizations. The paper assesses the human rights consequences for the Palestinian population of these policies and Norways aid projects. On the basis of the research the paper presents a series of recommendations.