Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

states are either considering or in the process of mak-

ing similar revisions (including Delaware, Iowa,

Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota Arizona,

Florida, Vermont, and Washington). It is hoped that in

the future, continued assessment and revision of

instructions accompanied by the application of theo-

retical perspectives from cognitive and social psychol-

ogy will continue to improve the jury instruction

process, leading to verdicts that are based on a true

understanding of the law by jurors.

Joel D. Lieberman

See alsoDamage Awards; “Dynamite Charge”; Inadmissible

Evidence, Impact on Juries; Jury Nullification; Jury

Understanding of Judges’ Instructions in Capital Cases

Further Readings

Ellsworth, P. C., & Reifman, A. (2000). Juror comprehension

and public policy: Perceived problems and proposed

solutions. Psychology, Public Policy, & Law, 6,788–821.

Elwork, A., Sales, B. D., & Alfini, J. J. (1982). Making jury

instructions understandable.Charlottesville, VA: Michie.

Finkel, N. J. (2000). Commonsense justice and jury

instructions: Instructive and reciprocating connections.

Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 6,591–628.

Greene, E., & Bornstein, B. (2000). Precious little guidance:

Jury instruction on damage awards. Psychology, Public

Policy and Law, 6,743–768.

Lieberman, J. D., & Sales, B. D. (1997). What social sciences

teaches us about the jury instruction process. Psychology,

Public Policy, and Law, 3,1–56.

Ogloff, J. R. P., & Rose, V. G. (2005). The comprehension of

judicial instructions. In N. Brewer & K. D. Williams

(Eds.),Psychology and law: An empirical perspective

(pp. 407–444). New York: Guilford Press.

JURYADMINISTRATIONREFORMS

Over the past half-century, courts have implemented a

host of reforms to the administrative processes

involved in qualifying and summoning prospective

jurors for jury service. These reforms have largely

focused on improving the demographic representation

of the jury pool and alleviating the burden of jury ser-

vice on citizens. This entry describes the legal and

theoretical basis for administrative reforms and the

specific efforts that courts have made to ensure that

the jury pool is broadly inclusive of the entire popula-

tion and reflects a fair cross-section of the community.

Legal and Theoretical Basis

for Administrative Reforms

The U.S. Supreme Court first ruled that African

Americans could not be systematically excluded from

the jury pool on the basis of race in 1880, but wide-

spread efforts to ensure a demographically representa-

tive jury pool began in earnest only with the civil rights

and women’s rights movements during the mid-20th

century. The legal principle requiring a racially and

ethnically diverse jury pool derives mainly from the

Sixth Amendment requirement that criminal defen-

dants be tried by “a fair and impartial jury,” which the

U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted as a jury selected

from “a fair cross-section of the community.”

The principle is premised on the belief that a jury

that reflects a broad spectrum of life experiences and

viewpoints is less likely to succumb to unchallenged

assumptions or biases during deliberations. This

understanding is supported by a substantial body of

empirical research concerning the implications of the

story model of juror decision making, which posits

that jurors filter trial evidence as it is presented through

a preexisting framework of life experiences, opinions,

and attitudes (e.g., how the world works, how people

interact, etc.), which in turn affects the inferences that

each juror takes away from that evidence. During

deliberations, jurors have the opportunity to present

competing interpretations of evidence and discuss their

credibility in the context of the entire case and come to

a consensus about the facts and the appropriate appli-

cation of law to those facts in their verdicts. Due to the

widespread public acceptance of this premise, courts

have also justified administrative reforms to the jury

system to bolster public perceptions of the fairness and

legitimacy of jury verdicts produced by diverse and

representative juries.

A secondary principle—tangentially related to the

first—is that jury service is a civic obligation that all

citizens must be prepared to undertake if the American

justice system is to continue to uphold its democratic

ideals. This principle derives less from specific con-

stitutional requirements and more from the belief that

a well-functioning democracy engages citizens across

every dimension of cultural identity, socioeconomic

status, and political orientation in a process of shared

decision making. Thus, no segment of society should

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