Hiroshi Fukurai

Where Did Black Jurors Go? A Theoretical Synthesis of Racial Disenfranchisement in the Jury System and Jury Selection

The jury system evolved as an essential ingredient of Americas 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.

Jury Selection Procedures

The starting point in jury selection is sending a jury summons, which calls prospective jurors to the courthouse. Yet relatively few eligible citizens are successful in finally entering the jury box. Before they reach the courthouse, most prospective jurors are screened out by a variety of legal and extralegal factors.

Sociologists in Action: The McMartin Sexual Abuse Case, Litigation, Justice, and Mass Hysteria

This paper describes our involvement as jury consultants in one of the most notorious criminal trials in history—the McMartin child-molestation trial in Los Angeles. The McMartin trial was the longest and costliest criminal trial in American history. The prosecution spent

Divorce in Contemporary Japan

15 million and took nearly six years in making a criminal case against day-care workers, only to have the jurors declare them not guilty. The defendants in the McMartin trial were charged with molesting young children at a preschool in Manhattan Beach, Los Angeles County, California. In 1987, we had performed scientific defense voir dire jury selection to choose the most impartial jurors to try the two defendants, Raymond Buckey and Peggy Buckey McMartin. In performing scientific jury selection, both a community survey and pre-voir dire questionnaires served as an important empirical foundation to assess jurors’ attitudinal, demographic, and socioeconomic characteristics to develop the effective juror profiles for the trial.

Japanese Migration in Contemporary Japan: Economic Segmentation and Interprefectural Migration

Data from the 1985-86 Japanese census are analysed to explore the determinants of the divorce rates in Japans forty-seven prefectures, using two theoretical models: (a) the social integration model, which is shown to have a greater utility in predicting Japanese divorce levels than (b), the human capital model. Female emigration patterns play a significant role in affecting the divorce rate. Population increase and net household income are also important predictors of the Japanese divorce rate and urbanization has a great influence in modern Japan. Demographic and aggregate variables such as migration, urbanization, and socioeconomic factors are useful when organized under a social integration model.

An Analysis of Interstate Migration in Mexico: Impact of Origin and Destination States on Migration Patterns

This paper examines the economic segmentation model in explaining 1985-86 Japanese interregional migration. The analysis takes advantage of statistical graphic techniques to illustrate the following substantive issues of interregional migration: (1) to examine whether economic segmentation significantly influences Japanese regional migration and (2) to explain socioeconomic characteristics of prefectures for both in- and out-migration. Analytic techniques include a latent structural equation (LISREL) methodology and statistical residual mapping. The residual dispersion patterns, for instance, suggest the extent to which socioeconomic and geopolitical variables explain migration differences by showing unique clusters of unexplained residuals. The analysis further points out that extraneous factors such as high residential land values, significant commuting populations, and regional-specific cultures and traditions need to be incorporated in the economic segmentation model in order to assess the extent of the models reliability in explaining the pattern of interprefectural migration.

The representative jury requirement: Jury representativeness and cross sectional participation from the beginning to the end of the jury selection process

This paper examines two theories of interstate migration in Mexico as explanations of interstate migration patterns: (1) a comparative economic opportunity thesis and (2) economic segmentation (or dual economy) model. The economic opportunity thesis argues that factors such as employment opportunities and salaries arc major considerations in any decision to move. Thus, internal migration is held to he an important way by which workers respond to changing economic opportunities and thereby redirect the spatial allocation of labor toward a more optimal pattern. The economic opportunity thesis, thus, assumes that rural-urban migration is primarily caused by higher paying jobs in urban sectors and shifts the analytical scope onto pull factors affecting rural exodus.The economic segmentation thesis, on the other hand, contains two components. First, micro-social factors (i.e., opportunities and salaries) do not determine the pattern of internal migration but, rather, a dual economy based on differential organizational development is the major determinant of migration patterns. By creating both labor market and economic opportunities, laborers are spatially allocated to meet the changing economic organizational structure. Second, the model also points out the importance of analyzing structural factors at both origin and destination of interstate migrants. While pull factor influence urban migration, structural factors in sending states also may affect urban exodus as well, i.e., organizational development, job availability, and the distribution of occupational reward structures. In general, the economic segmentation theory analyzes how the intrusion and penetration of modern capitalist social relations into the countryside triggers waves of rural migrants to receiving states in spite of the fact that there arc few opportunities (such as jobs and housing). The theoretical tenets of the economic opportunity and economic segmentation theses arc explored more fully in the next section.

Ecological Determinants of Divorce: A Structural Approach to the Explanation of Japanese Divorce

The paper specifically addresses the many ways in which the facially neutral procedures actually fail to secure representative jury pools. Although the Sixth Amendments fair cross‐section requirement forbids systematic discrimination in the creation of the jury venire and panel, it does not guarantee that the criminal jury will in fact reflect an accurate cross‐section of the community. As a result, not only does the Court fail to focus on nonlegally recognized screening mechanisms and factors such as exemptions, excuses, failure to followup jurors, etc., may affect jury representativeness, but also the Court never examined cross‐sectional representation at the entirety of the jury selection processes, except jury panels and final juries. The first section of this paper presents a brief overview of the constitutional law impacting impartial juries, especially addressing the fair cross‐section doctrine that is the focus of contemporary jury selection procedures. In providing empirical and systematic compa...

Computer-Aided Evaluation of Racial Representation in Jury Selection

This paper examines the ecological determinants of contemporary Japanese divorce rates on the prefectural level. LISREL and computer-generated graphics are the analytic methods used. The aggregate level of analysis demands the use of the ecological model which posits that demographic changes, economic activities, migration patterns, and the level of urbanization are significant predictors of divorce rate. Our analysis demonstrates that sex ratio, female labor force participation, female in-migration patterns, population increase, and net household income all play a significant role in affecting the divorce rate. Our findings also confirm the well-supported hypothesis that both population density and modernization positively influence modern Japans divorce rates. The residual analysis also points out that in order to account for the large proportion of the unexplained variance of Japanese divorce, behavioral-related variables and island- or prefecture-specific dimensions need to be included in the ecological model of divorce.

Acid pits and birth defects: a case study of the Stringfellow acid pits dump site and congenital anomalies

This paper examines a computer-aided evaluation of racial representation in jury selection. The main thrust of the paper is to present a technical comparison of two methods of selecting jury panels utilizing both spatial analyses and covariance structural modelings (LISREL). The computer-aided geographic analysis of racial representation in jury selection is further illustrated by the use of both spatial display of racially segregated residential patterns and inferential statistical methods in substantiating disproportionate racial representation in jury panels.