When Juries Meet the Press: Rethinking the Jury\u27s Representative Function in Highly Publicized Cases

This article explores questions related to the emergence of the jury\u27s new representative function. Section II examines traditional notions of jury representativeness by demonstrating how the jury came to be viewed as a means of providing community input into the criminal justice process. Section II also describes how a broadly representative jury can aid in fact-finding and provide legitimacy for the verdict. Finally, section II explains how a jury system, closed to public exploitation, was traditionally seen as a way to protect the jury\u27s ability to reach independent judgments. Section III reviews selected cases which reveal judicial recognition of the jury\u27s new representative function and determines that efforts to facilitate greater communication between the public and jurors should be favored by the courts. Section IV evaluates how the jury\u27s ability to perform its traditional fact-finding and legitimating functions is affected by the practice of encouraging jurors to explain their verdicts to the broader community. This article concludes that while the jury\u27s new representative function may serve valuable educational ends and enhance the legitimacy of jury verdicts, it does so at the expense of the jury\u27s fact-finding ability

When Juries Meet the Press: Rethinking the Jury\u27s Representative Function in Highly Publicized Cases

The increasing media saturation of society has altered the traditional roles and function of the jury in criminal trials. In several recent highly-publicized trials, most notably the Reginald Denny beating case, the jurors have been asked to publicly defend and explain their verdicts. In the past, jury verdicts were accepted as legitimate if the jury was representative of their community. Now, however, it seems that a jury must also be representative to their communities. This new representative function of the jury has profound implications for the more traditional functions of the jury. For example, what effect does the new representative function have on the jury\u27s traditional fact-finding function? Moreover, how will the prospect of intense media-coverage affect the willingness of competent people to serve on a jury? Finally, what impact would requiring juries to explain their verdict have on the defendant\u27s right to a fair trial? Professor Kenneth Nunn examines both the traditional notions of jury representativeness and the emergence of the new representative function. Professor Nunn also analyzes the effects of the new representative function on the jury\u27s other duties. Professor Nunn concludes that while the new representative functions may provide valuable educational benefits, it does so at the expense of the jury\u27s fact-finding ability

The Darden Dilemma : Should African Americans Prosecute Crimes?

Christopher Darden (prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson trial) has come to epitomize the burdens that African American prosecutors face as they perform their professional tasks. Moreover, the Darden Dilemma has become a generic term for the anguish that these prosecutors endure as they negotiate between competing allegiances to the African American community and the State. Much has been written about the sense of isolation that African American prosecutors feel when confronting the conflict between their roles as prosecutors and their obligations to the African American community. This article argues that African Americans should not prosecute crimes in the current criminal justice system

Rights Held Hostage: Race, Ideology and the Peremptory Challenge

This Article addresses the Supreme Court\u27s application of the Equal Protection Clause to the selection of juries in criminal trials. Focusing on Black-white relations, it takes the position that efforts to eliminate racial discrimination in jury selection are successful only to the extent that they also eliminate the result of the discrimination- racial subjugation of Blacks through the criminal justice process. By this measure, the Supreme Court\u27s recent jury selection cases are an abject failure

The Child as Other: Race and Differential Treatment in the Juvenile Justice System

The juvenile justice system is rife with disparities between white and non-white children. African American children are not the only ones who may be treated as the other inthe juvenile justice system. Latino, Native American, Asian, and even white children may be othered in the appropriate social context. This article focuses on African American children and their condition, because it is exemplary of how all children who are perceived as children of the other are treated and because, in some ways, the treatment of African American children, in a bipolar racial hierarchy, is unique

The Trial as Text: Allegory, Myth and Symbol in the Adversarial Criminal Process - A Critique of the Role of the Public Defender and a Proposal for Reform

A position of Federal Defender General should be created to enhance the public image of public defenders. Currently the adversarial system tends to favor prosecutors, making it hard for criminal defendants to obtain a fair trial. Semiotic theory shows how the criminal justice system reflects broader social discourse concerning crime. The defendants\u27 rights are given symbolic representation but are not considered seriously. Criminals are set apart from the rest of society and regarded as undeserving of truly fair representation. The trial can be seen as an allegory demonstrating the guilt of the defendant

Race, Crime and the Pool of Surplus Criminality: Or Why the War on Drugs Was a War on Blacks

The War on Drugs has had a devastating effect on African American communities nationwide. The concept of the pool of surplus criminality may explain the drug war\u27s focus on African Americans. Faced with a perceived drug problem, White Americans naturally identified African American people as the source of that threat and targeted them for police harassment and penal control. There are ways in which the drug war may be construed as a race war. The disproportionate impact on the African American community, evidence that policy makers anticipated the drug war would disproportionately harm the African American community, and the historic connection between drugs and racial stereotyping support this construction. The concept of the pool of surplus criminality explains why the drug war targeted African American communities and why, consequently, African Americans will always be treated unfairly by the nation\u27s criminal laws