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Building on research demonstrating significant differences in how Black and White Americans view law enforcement, this study assesses how those differential views shape potential jurors’ decision-making in the context of a federal drug conspiracy case in which the primary evidence against the defendant is provided by an FBI agent and an informant cooperating with the agent. A sample of 649 Black and White jury-eligible U.S. citizens were exposed to the case, in which a Black defendant is being tried, and where the informant-witness race (Black or White) was varied. Participants determined verdict, evaluated evidence, and completed additional measures. Results indicated that Black participants were significantly less likely to convict than White participants, especially in the White informant condition; rated the law enforcement witness as less credible, and viewed police more negatively across three composite measures. Exploratory analysis of how juror race and gender interacted indicates Black women largely drove racial differences in verdicts. Perceptions of police legitimacy mediated the relationship between juror race and verdict choice. We conclude that it is critical that citizens are not prevented from being seated on juries due to skepticism about police, given the risk of disproportionate exclusion of Black potential jurors. The legal processes relevant to juror excusals need to be reconsidered to ensure that views of police, rooted in actual experience or knowledge about the problems with fair and just policing, are not used to disproportionately exclude persons of color, or to seat juries overrepresented by people who blindly trust police.
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This content will become publicly available on November 26, 2025
Police talk in the jury room: the production of race-conscious reasonable doubt among racially diverse jury groups
Abstract A central goal of Critical Race Theory (CRT) is to deconstruct the “jurisprudence of color-blindness” that is infused with the language of equality while operating to maintain racial hierarchies. Color-blind ideology extends to the procedures governing criminal juries, ensuring they are disproportionately white while constraining diversity of perspectives, especially regarding policing issues. In this paper, we merge CRT insights about color-blindness and race-consciousness in the criminal jury context and in the Fourth Amendment law governing policing, to advance empirical socio-legal scholarship on race and jury decision-making. We analyze deliberations data from mock jury groups that decided on verdict in a federal drug conspiracy trial, focusing on how groups talked about law enforcement testimony. We find that negative discussions of the law enforcement testimony is associated with shifts toward acquittal, there are more skeptical discussions about this testimony when the defendant is Black, and that the presence of at least one Black juror in any given group is associated with more skeptical discussions of law enforcement testimony. Our qualitative analysis illustrates how Black jurors, in particular, raised concerns about policing, including unjust treatment of Black citizens, then successfully tied those concerns to the specific legal considerations at issue in the case.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1624943
- PAR ID:
- 10562326
- Publisher / Repository:
- Cambridge
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Law & Society Review
- ISSN:
- 0023-9216
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 30
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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