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Full-Text Articles in Law and Race
Jury Selection In The Weeds: Whither The Democratic Shore?, Jeffrey Abramson
Jury Selection In The Weeds: Whither The Democratic Shore?, Jeffrey Abramson
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This Article reports on four federal jury challenges in which the trial judge or defendants retained the author to provide research on jury selection plans. The research shows a persistent and substantial loss of representation for African Americans and Hispanics on federal juries, even though no intentional discrimination took place. Problems with undeliverable jury summonses, as well as failure to respond to summonses, were the main causes of departures from the ideal of cross-sectional jury selection. However, a cramped understanding of what it takes for a defendant to prove that minority jurors were systematically excluded, as required by Duren v. …
The Danger Of Nonrandom Case Assignment: How The Southern District Of New York's "Related Cases" Rule Shaped Stop-And-Frisk Rulings, Katherine A. Macfarlane
The Danger Of Nonrandom Case Assignment: How The Southern District Of New York's "Related Cases" Rule Shaped Stop-And-Frisk Rulings, Katherine A. Macfarlane
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
The Southern District of New York’s local rules are clear: “[A]ll active judges . . . shall be assigned substantially an equal share of the categories of cases of the court over a period of time.” Yet for the past fourteen years, Southern District Judge Shira Scheindlin has been granted near-exclusive jurisdiction over one category of case: those involving wide-sweeping constitutional challenges to the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) stop-and-frisk policies. In 1999, Judge Scheindlin was randomly assigned Daniels v. City of New York, the first in a series of high-profile and high-impact stop-and-frisk cases. Since then, she has overseen …
Leveling Localism And Racial Inequality In Education Through The No Child Left Behind Act Public Choice Provision, Erika K. Wilson
Leveling Localism And Racial Inequality In Education Through The No Child Left Behind Act Public Choice Provision, Erika K. Wilson
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
School district boundary lines play a pivotal role in shaping students' educational opportunities. Living on one side of a school district boundary rather than another can mean the difference between being able to attend a high-achieving resource-enriched school or having to attend a low-achieving resource-deprived school. Despite the prominent role that school district boundary lines play in dictating educational opportunities for students, remedies formulated by the federal judiciary-the institution frequently looked upon to address issues of school segregation and inequality-are ineffective in ameliorating disparities between school districts. They are ineffective because the federal judiciary evidences a doctrinal preference for localism …
Decline Of Title Vii Disparate Impact: The Role Of The 1991 Civil Rights Act And The Ideologies Of Federal Judges, Michael J. Songer
Decline Of Title Vii Disparate Impact: The Role Of The 1991 Civil Rights Act And The Ideologies Of Federal Judges, Michael J. Songer
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
This study employs various statistical techniques to test the efficacy of the 1991 Civil Rights Act in moderating the highly restrictive disparate impact regime imposed by Wards Cove, and to evaluate the hypothesis that political ideology should be a more powerful predictor of case outcomes following the 1991 Act. Part I of the paper describes the evolution of disparate impact doctrine from 1971 to the present. Part II analyzes data from randomly selected disparate impact cases brought by African American plaintiffs and finds that the current disparate impact doctrine emanating from the 1991 Civil Rights Act dramatically decreases the likelihood …
The Rise And Fall Of Affirmative Action Injury Selection, Avern Cohn, David R. Sherwood
The Rise And Fall Of Affirmative Action Injury Selection, Avern Cohn, David R. Sherwood
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan has historically experienced difficulty in achieving jury compositions that truly represented the surrounding community. In response, the Authors share their insight as to how the court instituted a "balancing" program. By reducing the number of white names in the jury wheel, the balancing program successfully incorporated more minorities into the jury system. The Authors further discuss the Sixth Circuit decision, United States v. Ovalle, which marked the end of the balancing program.
Attacking The Judicial Protection Of Minority Rights: The History Ploy, John E. Nowak
Attacking The Judicial Protection Of Minority Rights: The History Ploy, John E. Nowak
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Disabling America: The "Rights Industry" in Our Time by Richard E. Morgan