Roles of neighborhood race and status in the middle stages of juror selection

Abstract

This study investigated impacts of neighborhood race, status, and stability on the likelihood that summoned citizens would appear at the courthouse for jury duty using a full year of geocoded summoning data from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (n = 256,204). A theoretical model based on jury selection models and the sociology of settlement patterns connected potential juror yield or turnout with neighborhood stability, and racial and status composition. Multilevel models using census block groups as neighborhoods and controlling for spatial autocorrelation found, as predicted, that yield varied significantly across neighborhoods, and was lower in lower status neighborhoods, less stable neighborhoods, more predominantly Asian neighborhoods, and more predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods. As predicted by work on neighborhood integration, effects of African–American racial composition depended on the stage of neighborhood integration. Overall, the net effect of increasing African–American neighborhood racial composition was to increase yield. A significant spatial lag effect suggested localized dynamics operating beyond neighborhood boundaries.