Lay Participation in Law Research and Conferences

Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, Washington, DC

See more information on lay participation sessions and events that occurred.

Law and Society Association/Canadian Law and Society Association meeting in Toronto, Ontario

Here is a link to CRN sessions at the meeting of the Law and Society Association/Canadian Law and Society Association, which was held in Toronto on June 7–10, 2018. We organized five paper sessions and a roundtable discussion on a variety of issues including comparative lay participation research, inequality and the jury, and the role of criminal justice actors in shaping who sits on juries and in determining what they hear. Speakers spoke about lay participation developments in such countries as Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, England and Wales, France, Georgia, Japan, Norway, Russia, Spain, and the USA, offering us a range of perspectives.There was a business meeting (Friday 6/8, 11:45 am-12:45 pm) and a CRN group dinner following the conference’s opening reception on Thursday.

International Law and Society Conference, Mexico City, Mexico

Greetings! The International Law and Society Conference in Mexico City was a huge success, with a record number of participants in a world-class location. Our IRC organized a number of sessions showcasing the latest research from around the globe on lay participation in law. The first link below lists the IRC sessions. We have also posted links to materials from the individual presentations during the conference. See you in Toronto!

• Sessions on Lay Participation
• “Is unanimity a nightmare? Research about decision rules and verdicts from the jury in Argentina,” Mariana Bilinski and Natali Chizik (paper PDF)
• “Is unanimity a nightmare? Research about decision rules and verdicts from the jury in Argentina,” Mariana Bilinski and Natali Chizik (PPT PDF)
• “Beyond a broad appeal,” Vanina Almeida and Denise Bakrokar (paper PDF)
• “Beyond a broad appeal,” Vanina Almeida and Denise Bakrokar (PPT PDF)
• “Success or Failure? Japan’s Introduction of the Saiban-in Seido and the System of Lay Participation in Criminal Trials,” Hiroshi Fukurai and Dimitri Vanoverbeke (PDF)

Law and Society Association Annual Meeting in Seattle

The Law and Society Association’s preliminary program for 2015 is now available online. A big “thank you” to Mary Rose who served on the Program Committee for the conference. You can access the preliminary program here.

Our CRN on Lay Participation in Legal Decision Making is sponsoring 4 sessions. They are listed below. We will also hold a short business meeting after the last session on Thursday, 5/28, beginning around 6:45 pm. It conflicts with the start of the opening reception, but we will keep the meeting fairly short, and people who are interested can go to the reception together. Following the reception, those who are interested can go to a group dinner. If you’d like to be included in the CRN dinner, please email Sanja (kutnjak@msu.edu), so she can make the appropriate reservation.

We look forward to seeing you in Seattle! Valerie, Sanja, and Mary

1. CRN 04 Lay Participation Methods Roundtable
Fri, 5/29: 7:30 AM – 9:15 AM
3192
Roundtable Session
Friday Session 1
Westin Seattle
Room: Breakout 21
Jury scholars deploy multiple and multi-disciplinary research methods to examine lay participation in the legal process. As we follow our investigations in and out of courtrooms, judges’ chambers, and lawyers’ offices, our methodological approaches often require improvisation and combination. This workshop aims to expand discussions of jury research methods beyond the disciplinary boundaries that sometimes constrain them. Because of the dynamic nature of our research sites and diverse constitution of our scholarly audiences, this session offers a context within which to share reflections and ask questions of colleagues in adjacent disciplines. Drawing on illustrative research projects, panelists will offer insight into methods including conversation analysis, post-verdict survey work, quantitative studies of juror demographics, trial simulation research, an interactionist study of jury deliberation, and the ethnographic study of jury selection.

Chair: Anna Offit, Princeton
Discussant: Neil Vidmar, Duke Law School
Participant(s):
Catherine Grosso, Michigan State University College of Law
Paula Hannaford-Agor, National Center for State Courts
Margaret Kovera, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Barbara O’Brien, Michigan State University College of Law
Anna Offit, PrincetonMeredith Rossner, London School of Economics and Political Science
David Tait, University of Western Sydney
Nicole Waters, National Center for State Courts

2. Global Jury Practices &Innovations: A Cross-Country Exchange
Fri, 5/29: 9:30 AM – 11:15 AM
3252
Paper Session
Friday Session 2
Westin Seattle
Room: Breakout 24
In keeping with this meeting’s focus on the Global North and the Global South, this panel will explore “global jury practices and innovations.” We will focus on several countries, from as far north as Canada and as far south as Australia, as well as countries in between, and consider their different approaches to the jury and to lay participation. We will draw examples from the Global North and the Global South to examine how a common institution, such as the jury, can develop in different ways in different places and at different times. This cross-country exchange will help the panel members to think critically about their own jury system and which practices from other countries might work well in their own jury system and which practices might be difficult to import and why.

Chair/Discussant: Nancy Marder, IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law

Presentations
“Civil Jury Trials in Okinawa, Japan from 1964 to 1972 and Their Resurrection in Seeing Corporate and Governmental Accountabilities in a post-Fukushima Disaster era”
Presenter: Hiroshi Fukurai, University of California Santa Cruz

“The jury trial in Spain: the relevant role played by the Clerk of the Court”
Presenter: Mar Jimeno-Bulnes, Universidad de Burgos
Non-Presenting Co-Author: Valerie Hans, Cornell Law School

“The Problems of Lack of Native Representation on Juries in Canada: Exploring Whether A Jury of Peers Is Attainable and Strategies for Change”
Presenter: Marie Comiskey, University of Toronto

“The Theory and Reality of Lay Judges in Mixed Tribunals’
Presenter: Sanja Kutnjak Ivkovich, Michigan State University

3. CRN 04: Challenges facing the American Jury
Fri, 5/29: 1:30 PM – 3:15 PM
4646
Paper Session
Friday Session 4
Westin Seattle
Room: Breakout 21
This session will explore challenges the jury in the United States currently faces. One challenge stems from the move away from resolving disputes by trial. We will hear from a leading legal practitioner who is undertaking a lobbying and publicity campaign (e.g., the “Save Our Juries” website) to reignite use of the jury. Another challenge is the long-standing concern about who serves on juries. Two papers will explore representativeness issues, one which examines how the small samples generated for trial venires creates small disparities that are hard to litigate;the other looks at the issue of attitudinal representation. We will also have discussion of alternatives to the jury trial.

Chair: Mary Rose, University of Texas
Discussant: Paula Hannaford-Agor, National Center for State Courts

Presentations

“Juries and Attitudinal Representation”
Presenter: Andrew Krebs, University of Texas at Austin
Non-Presenting Co-Author(s): Shari Diamond, Northwestern U Law School/American Bar Foundation; Mary Rose, University of Texas

“Jurors and Social Media: Is a Fair Trial Still Possible?”
Presenter: Nancy Marder, IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law

“Saving the Civil Jury Trial: A Review of ABOTA’s Efforts”
Presenter: Stephen Susman, Susman Godfrey

“The Effect of Jury Service on Jurors’ Trust in Police and Courts”
Presenter: Liana Pennington, University of Alabama

“The Power of Small Cuts: Small Group Sampling and Jury Representation”
Presenter: Mary Rose, University of Texas

4. CRN 4: Listening to Lay Perspectives in Legal Systems
Fri, 5/29: 3:30 PM – 5:15 PM
6446 Paper Session
Friday Session 5
Westin Seattle
Room: Breakout 21
The papers in this session take a critical look at when the voices of lay tribunals (e.g., juries) and its members are listened to and taken seriously within the context of a broader legal system. Voices are obscured by not saying what the state or legal professionals wants to hear, or because the deliberative process is stymied by actual communication challenges.

Chair/Discussant: David Tait, University of Western Sydney

Presentations

“Composition of Mixed Courts in Kazakhstan: Issues of Linguistic, Racial and Gender Representativeness”
Presenter: Nikolai Kovalev, Wilfrid Laurier University

“From Alexander II to Putin: The Rise and Fall of Russian Juries Since the Time of the Czars”
Presenter: Nazim Ziyadov, Antalya International University

“Jury reform in England and Wales – unfinished business”
Presenter: Penny Darbyshire, Kingston University London

“Learning to judge: How Danish jurors navigate between Law and common sense during deliberation in criminal cases”
Presenter: Louise Victoria Johansen, Faculty of Law

“Participation in the administration of justice: Deaf citizens as jurors”
Presenter: Debra Russell, University of Alberta
Co-Presenter: Jemina Napier, Heriot-Watt University
Non-Presenting Co-Author(s): Sandra Hale, University of New South Wales; Mehera San Roque, University of New South Wales; David Spencer, Australian Catholic University

“Why States Solicit Citizen Input: The Introduction of Jury Systems in East Asia”
Presenter: Rieko Kage, University of Tokyo

Juries and Lay Participation: American Perspectives and Global Trends, Chicago, IL

A jury conference at Chicago-Kent College of Law entitled “Juries and Lay Participation: American Perspectives and Global Trends,” took place on Friday, October 10, 2014.

• Conference program (PDF)
• Conference poster (PDF)

Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, MN

View the panels and papers on Lay Participation presented at the 2014 Law and Society Association annual meeting

Law and Society Association Conference, Boston, MA

Greetings! The 2013 Law and Society Association Conference in Boston, MA was a success. It was a pleasure to see those of you who were able to attend. As promised, we have posted below links to materials from the presentations during the conference.

• Sessions on Lay Participation, compiled by Mary Rose (PDF)
• “Jury trial in Spain: past, present and future,” Mar Jimeno-Bulnes (PDF)
• “American Criminal Procedure in a European Context,” Mar Jimeno-Bulnes (PDF)
• “Benefits of Adopting Civil Jury Trials in Japan and Lessons from the United States,” Matthew J. Wilson (PDF)
• “Reader’s Comments on Dan Simon’s In Doubt: The Psychology of the Criminal Justice System,” Valerie Hans (PDF)
• “Agents of the state: Language and the construction of juror responsibility in death penalty decisions,” Robin Conley (PDF)

East Asian Law and Society Conference, Shanghai, China

The panel, Lay Participation Systems and their Socio-Legal Implications in East Asia and the World, was presented at the East Asian Law and Society Conference in Shanghai, China, in March 2013. Panelists included several members of our CRN/IRC:

• Valerie Hans (Cornell Law School), “Comparative Empirical Study of Lay Participation in Legal Decision Making” (PDF)
• Jisuk Woo and Jae-Hyup Lee (Seoul National University, Seoul National University), “What’s Happening in a Jury Room? Insights from a Shadow Jury Deliberation Study in Korea” (PDF)
• Hiroshi Fukurai (UC Santa Cruz) and William Qiu (UC Berkeley), “Why is Uncle Sam Watching Your Dikasteria?” (PDF)
• Justin Levinson (University of Hawaii School of Law), “New Jury Research: An Implicit Bias and Cultural Psychological Critique” (PDF)

2012 National Symposium on the American Jury System, Chicago, IL

International Law and Society Conference, Honolulu, Hawaii

• Sessions on Lay Participation during Honolulu Meeting (PDF)
• “Lay Participation in Argentina: Recent Experience and New Trends,” Edmundo Hendler (PDF)
• “An example of iconic jury trials in Spain: the G ürtel case,” Mar Jimeno-Bulnes (PDF)

Law and Society Association Meeting, Montreal, Canada

Click here to view the 2008 Montreal Law & Society Association Meeting (PDF format)

Conference on Citizen Participation in East Asian Legal Systems

On September 22 and 23, 2006, the Clarke Program in East Asian Law and Culture at Cornell Law School hosted researchers from around the world for a series of discussions on the introduction of lay decision makers into the legal systems of Japan, Korea, and other countries in East Asia. Speaking from a variety of transnational and interdisciplinary perspectives, presenters exchanged views on the impact of these developments on public justice and the research possibilities they present for legal scholars.

Cornell Law School professor and jury scholar Valerie Hans, who organized the conference, described the event as an opportunity to “build a research agenda.” Her aim for the conference was to identify key theoretical issues and empirical questions about the global phenomenon of citizen participation in legal decision making. To that end, the conference was organized into three panels. The first panel focused the sociological and theoretical context of citizen participation in law in Asia.

Speakers discussed the continuing evolution of the relationship between the people and the courts in Thailand, China, and Central Asia as the region undergoes sweeping technological and political transformation. On Japan, the topics of discussion ranged from concrete issues, such as the impact of proposed changes in the country’s Prosecutorial Review Commissions, to more abstract matters like the potential for the new lay judge system to modify Japan’s cultural hierarchy of language.

The second panel examined the process of legal reform and the role that historical, cultural, and legal factors play in shaping the nature of citizen participation. CLS assistant professor Bernadette Meyler analyzed the evolution of the English jury, offering a historical perspective on proposed legal changes in East Asian legal systems. Conference attendees also heard the insights of individuals who have been working to develop the new Japanese and Korean systems.

The final panel focused on strategies for empirical research. Panelists exchanged research techniques for all levels of the legal process, from public education regarding basic legal terminology to the patterns of deliberations within the black box of the jury. Particular emphasis was placed on how to use methods such as surveys and mock trial exercises to uncover a common set of issues central to the nature of citizen participation.

Also discussed were ways to apply transnational analysis to learn how to structure legal systems to render effective justice in different cultural contexts and political systems. The conference was successful on multiple levels. In addition to gaining perspective on the diversity of functions that juries and mixed tribunals play in the region, participants were able to craft issues and questions about the expansion of the citizen’s role, informed by comparative legal studies. Many of the conference attendees plan to meet again to continue discussions and collaboration.

Upcoming Clarke Program events are described at http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/international/clarke_program.