For Immediate ReleaseJanuary 24, 2001
Contact: Alisa Giardinelli(610) 690-5717[email protected]
www.swarthmore.edu/Home/News
Twenty-Somethings Want To Serve on Juries. But Don't Because Courts Fail To Accommodate Them, New Study Shows
Young people are underrepresented on juries not because they don't want to serve, but because the need for day care and the potential loss of wages makes it difficult for them to do so, new research from a Swarthmore College political scientist shows. The result -- that juries that are not representative by age of the general public -- jeopardizes the guarantee of a fair trial, he says.
"This is good news, despite what it suggests about the trial process," says assistant professor of political science Robert Boatright, who will present his research on February 3 in New York City at Jury Summit 2001, a national meeting of judges, attorneys, court administrators, and scholars who hope to improve the jury system. "It is a common worry that the under-30 crowd fails to show up for jury service because they have a bad attitude about the courts. In reality, their absence is due to personal inconvenience or, because twenty-somethings frequently move, the court's failure to track them down."
Boatright suggests that courts provide child care and appropriate compensation in order to attract the younger jurors most affected by those issues. He cites the Massachussetts court system as a leading example because it requires employer compensation and penalizes employers who discriminate against employees who take time off to serve. This is in stark contrast to the systems in California and Pennsylvania, which pay jurors $5- $9 for a day's work.
Boatright acknowledges the cost of such provisions may be high, but not as high as the cost of the alternative. "The Constitution says people should be tried by 'a jury of one's peers,'" he says. "If some people don't show up, whatever the reason, it jeopardizes a defendant's right to a fair trial. This raises the specter, for example, of a predominantly wealthy, educated, and white jury judging poor African-American defendants."
In order to assess attitudes towards jury service among different age groups, Boatright surveyed several hundred jury summons recipients. His results confirm his findings from a similar, previous study which also showed people were not disaffected with the courts; instead, they had not responded to the summons because they would have suffered economically if they had.
Boatright's work, which was funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, also appears in the current issue of Judicature, the journal of the American Judicature Society. He is the author of Improving Citizen Response to Jury Summones: A Report with Recommendations (American Judicature Society, 1998). His research interests also extend to American politics, especially the changes in the structure of Congress over the last 30 years.
Located near Philadelphia, Swarthmore is a highly selective liberal arts college with an enrollment of 1,450. Swarthmore is ranked among the top liberal arts colleges in the country by U.S. News & World Report.
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