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