Doctoral Dissertation Research: An Ethnographic Study of Lay Participation in the United States Criminal Justice System

本项目对美国联邦陪审团制度进行人类学研究，重点关注检察官如何挑选陪审员。公民被选择或免除陪审团服务的过程还没有从民族志上进行研究，这使得律师和社会科学家对律师的社会评价实践与他们作为专业精神维度的正义构想之间的关系理解不完全。该项目对社会法学研究和法律界做出了重大贡献。它将阐明检察官如何评估与手头案件有关的陪审团服务的个人。迄今为止，这项研究的一个关键发现是，检察官在寻求根据陪审员的属性组成陪审团时，利用了多种解释资源。这些资源包括他们在法律方面的专业培训，他们在准备审判案件时的合议咨询，以及他们的个人经验，以及其他社会知识来源。由于陪审员对检察官来说是陌生人，检察官经常使用标志性的“类型”作为社会特征（在他们自己的理解中）与不同分析能力和/或对犯罪和惩罚的倾向相一致的方式的速记。这项研究还将阐明检察官在与陪审团合作时如何将他们认为有义务伸张正义的行为转化为行动。本研究的见解有助于法律人类学和社会法学研究，并可以通过继续法律教育（CLE）课程回馈给法律专业，该课程侧重于陪审团选择的理论和实践。利用人种学方法，这项研究将包括在联邦司法区的多个美国检察官办公室和法庭进行参与者观察。研究人员将进行半结构化和非结构化访谈，以探索检察官对非专业决策者的看法如何从一个陪审员（和审判）转移到下一个陪审员。它还将涉及对审判记录的分析。

This project undertakes an anthropological study of the United States federal jury system, focusing on how prosecutors pick jurors. The process by which citizens are selected or excused from jury service has not been studied ethnographically, leaving lawyers and social scientists with an incomplete understanding of the relationship between attorneys' practices of social evaluation and their formulations of justice as dimensions of their professionalism. Significant contributions to sociolegal research and the legal profession flow from this project. It will shed light on how prosecutors evaluate individuals who report for jury service in relation to the case at hand. A key finding in this research to date is that prosecutors draw on multiple interpretive resources as they seek to compose a jury based on the attributes of jurors. These resources include their professional training in the law, their collegial consultation as they prepare cases for trial, and their personal experience, among other sources of social knowledge. Since jurors are by definition strangers to prosecutors, prosecutors often use iconic "types" as shorthand for the ways social characteristics align (in their own understandings) with different analytical abilities and/or orientations to crime and punishment. This research will also illuminate how prosecutors translate their felt obligation to do justice into action, as they work with juries. The insights of this study contribute to the anthropology of law and sociolegal studies, and can be returned as well to the legal profession through Continuing Legal Education (CLE) courses that focus on the theory and practice of jury selection.Drawing on ethnographic methods, this research will include participant observation in multiple U.S. Attorney's Offices and courtrooms in a federal judicial district. The researcher will conduct semi-structured and unstructured interviews that explore how prosecutors' ideas about lay decision-makers shift from one juror(and trial)to the next. It will also involve the analysis of trial transcripts.