From Group Member to Democratic Citizen: How Deliberating with Fellow Jurors Reshapes Civic Attitudes

Abstract

This investigation assesses the attitudinal impact of one of America's most distinctive and famous group activities-jury deliberation. Tocqueville and the U.S. Supreme Court have both reasoned that jury service can promote civic engagement and recent research supports this view. The present study examines whether the attitudinal impact of jury deliberation depends on the quality of one's jury experience. Two panel surveys of 2,410 total jurors tested the reciprocal relationship between the subjective experience of deliberation and the changes in civic attitudes toward oneself, fellow citizens, and public institutions. Principal results of structural equation models showed multiple effects of jury deliberation on attitudes, but there were no effects on one's civic identity and political self-efficacy. Reciprocally, every civic attitude except faith in fellow citizens was predictive of deliberative experience in at least one of the two studies. Overall, the study bolsters the claim of deliberative democratic theorists that the experience of consequential face-to-face talk can make private individuals into public citizens by reinforcing their confidence in fellow citizens and public institutions.

The experiences of those who have served jury duty

“…Specifically, jurors who served and reached a verdict, experienced an increase in voting rates (Gastil et al, 2008) similar to Miller's (2008) findings. Gastil et al, suggest juror service thus translates to faith in government processes; Gastil et al, state this is because these institutions are built on faith and experiencing those processes sustains that faith.…”

“…By providing jurors with more satisfactory overall experiences, this link can be strengthened and may transfer into other areas of civic life, as is also suggested by Miller (2008) and Gastil et al (2008). Bellefeuille (2003) describes this process as social wellness, which highlights human capacities, leading to community empowerment and changes to oppressive systems.…”

“…Group discussion has been described as a powerful experience and questions have been raised as to the extent it may positively or negatively impact those who serve jury duty (Gastil et al, 2008). The task of the jury is to deliberate as a constructed group and come to an agreement for the outcome of the trial they observed.…”

“…Though there has been increased attention to the wellbeing of jurors in the last two decades (Carll, 1999;Slind-Flor, 1992), research on the impacts of serving jury duty overall, remains relatively limited (Feldmann & Bell, 1991;Gastil et al;Kaplan & Winget, 1992). Though research indicates that the majority of jurors will need minimal to no intervention, those who do require intervention, may require high levels of intervention (Nordgren & Thelen, 1999).…”

“…The literature on individuals who have served as a juror comes mostly from outside of Canada, and is limited in scope (Gastil, Black, Deess, & Leighter, 2008). Current literature on jurors discusses topics such as juror dissatisfaction with an emphasis on fostering public confidence in the judiciary system (Cutler & Hughes, 2001).…”