Jury Profiling Survey: Sexual Assault Cases.

Abstract

The program for Aid to Victims of Sexual Assault recommended "that the St. Louis County Attorney utilize resources in the community to study community attitudes in order to develop profiles for the selection of jurors in court trials of sexual assault cases." It is the intent of this research to profile St. Louis County residents to collect data for use in the selection of jurors in court trials of sexual assault cases. Jury profiling is a well recognized and widely used practice in law involving the classification and analysis of demographic descriptors which, given various weightings, can predict individual predispositions towards certain types of cases. The reason jury profiling research is undertaken is to provide attorneys with concrete information which informs or reaffirms beliefs about the attitudes of potential jurors. This research was carried out in two parts. The first part of the research focused on individuals who had served on juries involving sexual assault cases. Sixteen cases were selected and all jurors were asked a series of profiling questions as well as a series of questions about the jury deliberation process. A total of 121 completed interviews were conducted with jurors. In the second part, a random selection of 256 St. Louis County residents were contacted and asked the same series of profiling questions. A total of 100 completed interviews were conducted with St. Louis County residents who had not been jurors in the selected cases. Therefore, a total of 221 interviews were completed.