Book Review: The Effect of Jurors’ Race on their Response to Scientific Evidence

• Published date: 01 June 2013
• Date: 01 June 2013
• DOI: 10.1177/0734016812460544
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

Toch provides an informative break from the overly scientific jargon typical of many academic

publications. Instead, he tells a story of the historical development of Seattle’s police reform in a

way that combines the analytic techniques of a scientist with a journalist’s clarity. In Cop Watch,

Toch shows how the sequence of events involving the police and citizens can spiral out of control.

Often times these events degenerate because of deeper problems that precondition police–citizen

interactions in many neighborhoods such that police officers and citizens dislike and distrust one

another.

Although Cop Watch could benefit from contemporary police and citizen interviews, this book is

relevant for police and community leaders. While reviewing this book, I read an account of a fatal

police shooting in New York City. As the police tried to question the suspect, he fled the area, the

police gave chase, and the suspect pulled out a knife. After several attempts to get the suspect to

comply, two officers shot the suspect multiple times. The incident was recorded by a bystander with

a cell phone and was aired on television and the Internet. While watching the cell phone video,

I thought about the timeliness of Cop Watch. Toch demonstrates the interactive process involved

between the police and citizens, and he has provided a book that should be read by scholars and

police practitioners.

S. L. Albertson

The Effect of Jurors’ Race on their Response to Scientific Evidence El Paso, TX: LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC, 2012.

xi, 162 pp. $65.00. ISBN-13: 978-1-59332-450-6

Reviewed by: Michael L. Perlin, New York Law School, New York, NY, USA

DOI: 10.1177/0734016812460544

Stephanie Albertson bravely tackles an important and complex question in her new book: What is

the impact of the race of a juror on how that juror perceives certain scientific evidence? Her work is

an important contribution to the literature, although it leaves the reader yearning for more.

Whenever a jury returns a ‘‘wrong’’ verdict (translation: not the verdict that the person expressing

an opinion would have returned), the predictable debate ensues as to whether the jury system can be

trusted to ‘‘get it right.’’ Putting aside some important truths—that the person complaining about the

verdict (1) did not hear all the evidence, (2) likely heard about inadmissible evidence, and (3) prob-

ably has no idea what the legal standard was that the jurors had to consider—the debate resurfaces

again and again (especially in a high-profile or controversial case), and reflects our suspicions that

jurors are not smart enough or too gullible or too closed-minded to really render ‘‘an accurate ver-

dict.’’ In recent years, it seems as if this happens all the more frequently when jurors are required to

consider the impact of scientific evidence, evidence that often depends on the understanding and

interpretation of facts and principles that are normally beyond the ken of lay people. Both saturation

press coverage of criminal cases turning on DNA evidence, and what is commonly known as the

‘‘CSI effect’’ (the expectation that jurors expect certain kind of forensic evidence presented in ways

that they have become familiar with from the CSI TV franchise) have contributed to this state of

affairs.

Researchers have turned their attention to jury behavior in recent years in efforts to better under-

stand how jurors construe evidence and why they decide certain cases the way they do. In this scho-

larship, they have focused specifically on the extent to which jurors do comprehend scientific

evidence and how such evidence is weighed in the deliberation process. But, until the publication

Book Reviews 245