Jury Selection in the Post-Batson Era

Author(s):  
Barbara O’Brien ◽  
Catherine M. Grosso

In Batson v. Kentucky (1986), the US Supreme Court sought to eradicate racial discrimination in jury selection by prohibiting the exercise of peremptory strikes based on race. This chapter reviews the evidence that Batson has failed to protect jurors from race-based strikes and the reasons for this failure. The test for establishing racial discrimination set forth in Batson suffers from design flaws that make its enforcement difficult given common psychological mechanisms at work in the decision-making process and which may be exacerbated by the jury selection process itself. Batson seeks to remedy only intentional discrimination. Moreover, its capacity to ensure diverse juries is limited by the stages of jury selection that precede its application. Enforcing Batson effectively is critical to the system’s integrity, but no simple solutions exist to remedy the stubborn persistence of racial bias in jury selection. All of this suggests that measures are needed to strengthen Batson’s protections.

2012 ◽  
Vol 102 (1) ◽  
pp. 202-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matias Iaryczower ◽  
Matthew Shum

We estimate an equilibrium model of decision making in the US Supreme Court that takes into account both private information and ideological differences between justices. We measure the value of information in the court by the probability that a justice votes differently from how she would have voted without case-specific information. Our results suggest a sizable value of information: in 44 percent of cases, justices' initial leanings are changed by their personal assessments of the case. Our results also confirm the increased politicization of the Supreme Court in the last quarter century. Counterfactual simulations provide implications for institutional design. (JEL D72, D82, D83, K10)


Author(s):  
Benjamin Alarie ◽  
Andrew J. Green

This chapter examines how judges are influenced not only by formal rules of how the court is to arrive at decisions, but also by norms of decision-making. It discusses the existence and strength of norms of consensus on different courts. Courts vary to a surprising extent in the size and causes of disagreement amongst judges. The two most extreme cases in our sample are the US Supreme Court, with over half of the cases having at least one dissent, and the Indian Supreme Court where only about 5 percent of cases involve a dissent. We find evidence that, depending on the country, a judge is influenced in whether she dissents by policy differences with other judges and her own workload. However, a judge’s decision to dissent also appears related to the background norms of whether it is acceptable to dissent, and the leadership of the chief justice or president of the court.


Author(s):  
Charles Wise

Abstract This article reviews and analyzes the federalism theories and principles that the US Supreme Court has employed during various eras and compares and contrasts them. It does this by specifying the major theoretical frameworks that have been proposed for Supreme Court federalism decision making and then examines how the Supreme Court has employed their components during various eras. It then draws implications for public policy and administration and poses research questions for the future.


Author(s):  
Kasey Barr ◽  
Alex Mintz

This chapter examines the effect of group dynamics on the 2016 decision within the administration of President Barack Obama to lead the international coalition in a mission to liberate Raqqa, Syria, from the Islamic State. The authors show that whereas the groupthink syndrome characterized the decision-making process of the US-led coalition’s decision to attack Raqqa, it was polythink that characterized the decision-making dynamics both in the US-led coalition and within the inner circle of Obama’s own foreign policy advisors. Through case-study analysis, the authors illustrate that groupthink is more likely in strategic decisions, whereas polythink is more likely in tactical decisions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 6581
Author(s):  
Jooyoung Hwang ◽  
Anita Eves ◽  
Jason L. Stienmetz

Travellers have high standards and regard restaurants as important travel attributes. In the tourism and hospitality industry, the use of developed tools (e.g., smartphones and location-based tablets) has been popularised as a way for travellers to easily search for information and to book venues. Qualitative research using semi-structured interviews based on the face-to-face approach was adopted for this study to examine how consumers’ restaurant selection processes are performed with the utilisation of social media on smartphones. Then, thematic analysis was adopted. The findings of this research show that the adoption of social media on smartphones is positively related with consumers’ gratification. More specifically, when consumers regard that process, content and social gratification are satisfied, their intention to adopt social media is fulfilled. It is suggested by this study that consumers’ restaurant decision-making process needs to be understood, as each stage of the decision-making process is not independent; all the stages of the restaurant selection process are organically connected and influence one another.


Author(s):  
Christoph Bezemek

This chapter assesses public insult, looking at the closely related question of ‘fighting words’ and the Supreme Court of the United States’ decision in Chaplinsky v New Hampshire. While Chaplinsky’s ‘fighting words’ exception has withered in the United States, it had found a home in Europe where insult laws are widely accepted both by the European Court of Human Rights and in domestic jurisdictions. However, the approach of the European Court is structurally different, turning not on a narrowly defined categorical exception but upon case-by-case proportionality analysis of a kind that the US Supreme Court would eschew. Considering the question of insult to public officials, the chapter focuses again on structural differences in doctrine. Expanding the focus to include the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACtHPR), it shows that each proceeds on a rather different conception of ‘public figure’.


2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 361-373
Author(s):  
Anna Khakee

The suspense-filled attempted partial privatization of the Narva Power Plants in the neo-liberal darling Estonia involved a rich cast, from trade unions and local scientists, via Estonian courts and ombudsmen to international consulting firms, major global banks and the US government. More important, a detailed single case study on the democratic decision-making process in this privatization case makes it possible to go beyond common generalizations regarding the consequences of neo-liberalism for democratic processes. It shows that purported proponents of economic neo-liberalism such as the US government sometimes use their arguments to advance the narrow business interests of politically well-connected firms. Established private firms can behave in a more rent-seeking manner than publicly owned, ex-communist companies. Liberal economic principles of open competition and a level playing-field are at times used by actors in the democratic process to question top-down, opaque economic decisions.


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