First, Do No Harm: On Addressing the Problem of Implicit Bias in Juror Decision Making

Over the past three decades, court leaders across the country have taken aggressive steps to confront racial bias in the courts. Recent efforts include in-depth judicial education and training about how an individual’s unconscious attitudes (including culturally learned associations or generalizations that we tend to think of as stereotypes) introduce unjustified assumptions about other people and related evidence that can distort a person’s judgment and behavior. This phenomenon is now referred to as implicit bias to differentiate it from explicit or intentional bias. Judicial education programs focus on raising judicial awareness about implicit bias and introducing techniques that judges may use to help minimize the impact of implicit bias on judicial decision making. Despite high levels of interest and genuine commitment to racial fairness in the justice system, disparate treatment of racial minorities persists and pervades all stages of the criminal justice process. Jury trials are a particularly troubling component of the justice system with regard to the potential for racial bias. Courts have extremely limited opportunities to educate jurors about the pernicious effects of complex psychological phenomena like implicit bias and how these implicit forms of bias may distort jurors’ interpretation of trial evidence. Jurors are randomly selected from the local community. Other than statutory qualifications such as U.S. citizenship, age (adults 18 or older), and the ability to speak and understand English, state courts have no educational, occupational, or personal experience requirements to be eligible for jury service. Most jurors in this country serve only for the duration of the trial (typically two to three days) and then are released from service. No time is available during this short period to provide the type of in-depth education on implicit bias that judges and court staff may receive. Instead, judges and lawyers are increasingly looking to existing opportunities within the jury-selection and trial period (e.g., juror orientation, voir dire, jury instructions) in which to inform jurors about the propensity of implicit bias to affect decision making and to provide concrete strategies to minimize the impact of implicit bias on jury verdicts

Addressing Implicit Bias in the Courts

Fairness is a fundamental tenet of American courts. Yet, despite substantial work by state courts to address issues of racial and ethnic fairness,2 public skepticism that racial and ethnic minorities receive consistently fair and equal treatment in American courts remains widespread.3 Why? THE INFLUENCE OF IMPLICIT ASSOCIATIONS Perhaps one explanation may be found in an emerging body of research on implicit cognition. During the last two decades, new assessment methods and technologies in the fields of social science and neuroscience have advanced research on brain functions, providing a glimpse into what National Public Radio science correspondent Shankar Vedantam refers to as the “hidden brain.”4 Although in its early stages, this research is helping scientists understand how the brain takes in, sorts, synthesizes, and responds to the enormous amount of information an individual faces on a daily basis.5 It also is providing intriguing insights into how and why individuals develop stereotypes and biases, often without even knowing they exist. The research indicates that an individual’s brain learns over time how to distinguish different objects (e.g., a chair or desk) based on features of the objects that coalesce into patterns. These patterns or schemas help the brain efficiently recognize objects encountered in the environment. What is interesting is that these patterns also operate at the social level. Over time, the brain learns to sort people into certain groups (e.g., male or female, young or old) based on combinations of characteristics as well. The problem is when the brain automatically associates certain characteristics with specific groups that are not accurate for all the individuals in the group (e.g., “elderly individuals are frail”). Scientists refer to these automatic associations as implicit—they operate behind-the-scenes without the individual’s awareness

Urbanisation generates multiple trait syndromes for terrestrial animal taxa worldwide

Cities can host significant biological diversity. Yet, urbanisation leads to the loss of habitats, species, and functional groups. Understanding how multiple taxa respond to urbanisation globally is essential to promote and conserve biodiversity in cities. Using a dataset encompassing six terrestrial faunal taxa (amphibians, bats, bees, birds, carabid beetles and reptiles) across 379 cities on 6 continents, we show that urbanisation produces taxon-specific changes in trait composition, with traits related to reproductive strategy showing the strongest response. Our findings suggest that urbanisation results in four trait syndromes (mobile generalists, site specialists, central place foragers, and mobile specialists), with resources associated with reproduction and diet likely driving patterns in traits associated with mobility and body size. Functional diversity measures showed varied responses, leading to shifts in trait space likely driven by critical resource distribution and abundance, and taxon-specific trait syndromes. Maximising opportunities to support taxa with different urban trait syndromes should be pivotal in conservation and management programmes within and among cities. This will reduce the likelihood of biotic homogenisation and helps ensure that urban environments have the capacity to respond to future challenges. These actions are critical to reframe the role of cities in global biodiversity loss.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Implicit Bias and the American Juror

On August 9, 2014, white police officer Darren Wilson shot an unarmed black civilian named Michael Brown. In the wake of the extensive media coverage and public scrutiny that followed, the tragic incident triggered a federal civil-rights investigation and renewed a broader national dialogue about the perception of black males as inherently dangerous, threatening, or criminal—and the role of those perceptions in perpetuating racial inequality in the United States.1 A grand jury decision not to indict Wilson on murder charges elicited highly polarized reactions from the general public, which ranged from wholehearted support for Officer Wilson to further accusations of racial bias against the prosecutor in the case and against the predominantly white grand jury charged with making the decision.2 The President of the United States addressed the diverse sentiments of the American people: There are Americans who agree with it [the Ferguson grand jury decision] and there are Americans who are deeply disappointed—even angry. . . . We have made enormous progress in race relations over the course of the past several decades. I have witnessed that in my own life, and to deny that progress, I think, is to deny America’s capacity for change. But what is also true is that there are still problems—and communities of color aren’t just making these problems up. Separating that from this particular decision, there are issues in which the law too often feels as if it is being applied in a discriminatory fashion.

First, Do No Harm: On Addressing the Problem of Implicit Bias in Juror Decision Making

Over the past three decades, court leaders across the country have taken aggressive steps to confront racial bias in the courts. Recent efforts include in-depth judicial education and training about how an individual’s unconscious attitudes (including culturally learned associations or generalizations that we tend to think of as stereotypes) introduce unjustified assumptions about other people and related evidence that can distort a person’s judgment and behavior. This phenomenon is now referred to as implicit bias to differentiate it from explicit or intentional bias. Judicial education programs focus on raising judicial awareness about implicit bias and introducing techniques that judges may use to help minimize the impact of implicit bias on judicial decision making. Despite high levels of interest and genuine commitment to racial fairness in the justice system, disparate treatment of racial minorities persists and pervades all stages of the criminal justice process. Jury trials are a particularly troubling component of the justice system with regard to the potential for racial bias. Courts have extremely limited opportunities to educate jurors about the pernicious effects of complex psychological phenomena like implicit bias and how these implicit forms of bias may distort jurors’ interpretation of trial evidence. Jurors are randomly selected from the local community. Other than statutory qualifications such as U.S. citizenship, age (adults 18 or older), and the ability to speak and understand English, state courts have no educational, occupational, or personal experience requirements to be eligible for jury service. Most jurors in this country serve only for the duration of the trial (typically two to three days) and then are released from service. No time is available during this short period to provide the type of in-depth education on implicit bias that judges and court staff may receive. Instead, judges and lawyers are increasingly looking to existing opportunities within the jury-selection and trial period (e.g., juror orientation, voir dire, jury instructions) in which to inform jurors about the propensity of implicit bias to affect decision making and to provide concrete strategies to minimize the impact of implicit bias on jury verdicts

Addressing Implicit Bias in the Courts

Fairness is a fundamental tenet of American courts. Yet, despite substantial work by state courts to address issues of racial and ethnic fairness,2 public skepticism that racial and ethnic minorities receive consistently fair and equal treatment in American courts remains widespread.3 Why? THE INFLUENCE OF IMPLICIT ASSOCIATIONS Perhaps one explanation may be found in an emerging body of research on implicit cognition. During the last two decades, new assessment methods and technologies in the fields of social science and neuroscience have advanced research on brain functions, providing a glimpse into what National Public Radio science correspondent Shankar Vedantam refers to as the “hidden brain.”4 Although in its early stages, this research is helping scientists understand how the brain takes in, sorts, synthesizes, and responds to the enormous amount of information an individual faces on a daily basis.5 It also is providing intriguing insights into how and why individuals develop stereotypes and biases, often without even knowing they exist. The research indicates that an individual’s brain learns over time how to distinguish different objects (e.g., a chair or desk) based on features of the objects that coalesce into patterns. These patterns or schemas help the brain efficiently recognize objects encountered in the environment. What is interesting is that these patterns also operate at the social level. Over time, the brain learns to sort people into certain groups (e.g., male or female, young or old) based on combinations of characteristics as well. The problem is when the brain automatically associates certain characteristics with specific groups that are not accurate for all the individuals in the group (e.g., “elderly individuals are frail”). Scientists refer to these automatic associations as implicit—they operate behind-the-scenes without the individual’s awareness

Boletín Oficial de la Provincia de Guadalajara: Número 53 - 1936 mayo 1

Official judicial-performance evaluation (JPE) programs in the United States emerged to achieve important judicial-branch objectives. JPE programs respond to the need for courts to demonstrate accountability, provide information for voters in low-information judicial-retention elections, improve the quality of the bench by providing feedback for individual judges to use for self-evaluation purposes, and assist judicial administrators in making decisions on retention and assignments in some states with appointed judiciaries. A number of professional organizations, such as the American Bar Association, American Judicature Society, and the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, are strong advocates for the value of JPE programs.1 Eighteen states and the District of Columbia currently operate official JPE programs, mostly conducted by the judicial branch itself, but some conducted by executive-branch agencies in a few states.2 Whether official or unofficial, nearly all JPE programs rely upon surveys distributed to attorneys and court staff—and in some instances to jurors, litigants, and others—as the exclusive or a primary method for measuring judicial performance.3 Most state JPE programs are based on the American Bar Association’s Black Letter Guidelines for the Evaluation of Judicial Performance,4 and several states use some variation of the model surveys put forth by the ABA Lawyers’ Conference.