OpenCourseWare on critical thinking, logic, and creativity

Answer

If selection is random, and 50% of the eligible jurors are women, then the probability of obtaining an all male jury by chance is (0.5) = 0.00024, or about one in 4000. Given that 50% of eligible jurors are women, this result suggests that we should reject the hypothesis that jury selection is random, in favour of the hypothesis that selection is biased towards picking men.

(In practice, jury selection is considerably more complicated than this, and involves several stages. This makes the statistical analysis more involved, although the outcome in this case is the same. For details, see Hans Ziesel and Harry Kalven Jr., "Parking tickets and missing women: statistics and the law" in Judith M. Tanur et al., eds. (1989), Statistics: A Guide to the Unknown. Pacific Grove, CA: Wadsworth.)

• Return to main text.

<< previous page