Jury Experiences
04-25-2007, 02:11 PM
[Submitted to Jury Experiences by a psychology professor who uses the following document as a handout to "generate class discussion."]
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PERSPECTIVES ON (IN)EQUITY: CASE EXAMPLE
A True Story from a Small Town in West Texas, 1992
I (MM) was contacted by two law school students who were acting as pro bono lawyers for a custody case, and requested to act as an expert witness due to my background in child development. (At the time I was a graduate student in Human Development, and Director of the Child Development Research Center at Texas Tech University.) Their client was a Hispanic woman, who could not afford other legal help. The dispute, also involving her ex-husband, was over the custody of their 4 –year-old daughter.
The 4-year-old was living with her mother and her 5 older siblings. The child’s father (anglo) had not lived with her for 2 years. The father had taken the issue of his daughter’s custody to court, seeking to have custodial rights taken away from the mother and granted solely to him.
The legal team advocating for the child to remain with her mother and siblings argued that to disrupt her primary attachment relationships and remove her from her family, placing her with adults she did not know well, would have a detrimental effect on her social and emotional development.
The legal team advocating for the father asserted that the child was neglected because the mother held a “swing shift” job at the local meat packing company, thus leaving the child in the care of her oldest teenage siblings and extended family during the late afternoon and evening. They introduced the father’s mother (the child’s grandmother, whom the child knew only slightly), who said she would assume primary responsibility for the child since the father was a trucker. They passed around pictures of a white clap-board house in Arkansas to show where the child would be cared for, if custody were transferred to the father.
The jury was composed of all “anglo” males. The judge was also an “anglo” male. The jury deliberated for 15 minutes, and awarded custody to the father. The judge also ruled in favor of the father. Subsequently, the child was removed from her home and taken to Arkansas.
Were cultural factors important in this case (race, ethnicity, gender, social class)? What was probably equitable about this case? What was probably not?
Points to consider:
• Affording legal help • Welfare of the child
• Jury selection • Gender and power in the courtroom
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PERSPECTIVES ON (IN)EQUITY: CASE EXAMPLE
A True Story from a Small Town in West Texas, 1992
I (MM) was contacted by two law school students who were acting as pro bono lawyers for a custody case, and requested to act as an expert witness due to my background in child development. (At the time I was a graduate student in Human Development, and Director of the Child Development Research Center at Texas Tech University.) Their client was a Hispanic woman, who could not afford other legal help. The dispute, also involving her ex-husband, was over the custody of their 4 –year-old daughter.
The 4-year-old was living with her mother and her 5 older siblings. The child’s father (anglo) had not lived with her for 2 years. The father had taken the issue of his daughter’s custody to court, seeking to have custodial rights taken away from the mother and granted solely to him.
The legal team advocating for the child to remain with her mother and siblings argued that to disrupt her primary attachment relationships and remove her from her family, placing her with adults she did not know well, would have a detrimental effect on her social and emotional development.
The legal team advocating for the father asserted that the child was neglected because the mother held a “swing shift” job at the local meat packing company, thus leaving the child in the care of her oldest teenage siblings and extended family during the late afternoon and evening. They introduced the father’s mother (the child’s grandmother, whom the child knew only slightly), who said she would assume primary responsibility for the child since the father was a trucker. They passed around pictures of a white clap-board house in Arkansas to show where the child would be cared for, if custody were transferred to the father.
The jury was composed of all “anglo” males. The judge was also an “anglo” male. The jury deliberated for 15 minutes, and awarded custody to the father. The judge also ruled in favor of the father. Subsequently, the child was removed from her home and taken to Arkansas.
Were cultural factors important in this case (race, ethnicity, gender, social class)? What was probably equitable about this case? What was probably not?
Points to consider:
• Affording legal help • Welfare of the child
• Jury selection • Gender and power in the courtroom