Psychology

I. Introduction
Members of the jury, or also known as jurors, play very essential roles in the legal system. They decide whether the defendant (or the accused) is guilty of a crime or not, based on the facts and evidences presented by both parties involved. Although one might say that being a juror is a nice thing to do because of the power that the job entails, still such task is not that easy as some people perceive it to be.  As a juror, one should be an independent thinker and should not hold any bias towards or against neither the victim nor the accused.  A juror should remain true to his beliefs and should not be influenced by any party or individual. In other words, a juror should be impartial (Courts Service of Ireland, 2010).

There were instances, however, that jurors had not maintained their oath of objectivity wherein they gave-in more to their biases and partialities than the evidences presented in the court hence, making their decisions out of logical context which, in effect, adversely affecting the justice system.
At this juncture, this researcher finds it interesting to study the relationship between the jurors racial status (in this study, whether white or black) and the accused persons race. It is not a hidden fact that racial issues have been one of the most contested social issues up to the present, and this researcher wanted to find out if such issue really reaches the courtroom with capital punishment as the verdict given against the accused.  Using the chi-square analysis with the aid of  GPower Analysis for this statistical treatment, such objective will be realized.

This study aims to answer the problem if there is a significant relationship between the jurors race and hisher decision of capital punishment against an accused based on the accused persons race.

II. Review of Related Literature

In an article publised at Race and Ethnic Policy Issues (2008), it was cited that more than a quarter of male black individuals are likely to be detained at a certain point of their lives as pointed out by the Department of Justice. Furthermore, the persons race has been used as basis in detaining persons wherein in this case, as stated by previous studies, black people are more prone as suspected individuals who might be engaging in illegal activities.  Such case is called as racial profiling.  Although, it was cited as well that in capital punishment, number of black perpetrators has more or less equivalent number with white perpetrators however, when it comes to victims cases involving white victims have higher number in terms of gaining a death penalty prosecution against the accused compared to those cases involving black victims.

Meanwhile, to address issues of racial inequality in the courtroom, certain ways of juror selection were proposed in the book entitled Racial Issues in Criminal Justice The Case of African Americans wherein models of affirmative jury selection were cited.  The selection of jurors, in this case, is relative to the race of the defendant as well as the distribution of race (or ethnicity) among the jury members themselves. Accordingly, said system can be good options in establishing fairer trials in courtrooms although it cannot really be prevented that there are some people who have grown accustomed on the prejudicial judgements based on skin color.

Abovementioned proposals were just products of observations in a society that is still haunted by racism. Although that in this modern age right now and the technological advancements that the current society is bragging about, still it cannot be discounted that people are still swayed by skin color prejudices  and the courtroom is no exemption in this matter.

Rev. Edward Pinkey averred in his online blog that in Berrien County, Whites are more likely to be called for jury service compared to those who are Blacks.  Rev Pinkey further stated that Black defendants are likely to suffer unfair judgements by an all-white jury. This clearly shows that even in the justice system, the concept of black-and-white is still being observed although not blatantly, still it creeps into the four corners of the courtroom.

In this juncture, one can truly say that the race of the defendant affects the decision of a specific juror in terms of capital punishment cases are concerned. Also, the race of the juror plays a significant part in her decision on the case.

III. Methodology

Research Design
This study will be an experimental study wherein variables involved will be placed in an experimental situation and will expose them to certain other variables that can, later on, affect their way of thinking.  From the data gathered from these experiments, the researcher will interpret the data and analyze the relationships among variables involved.

Research Tools and Instruments
The researcher reviewed books and other sources of information in order to give him a grasp on how the research method will flow.  The researcher also conducted interviews with sociologists and people in the legal system in order to fully understand the issue of racial discrimination as well as the justice system in the country. Video snippets will be shown to the respondents who will be grouped accordingly to their racial background. Their responses to the video snippets will be recorded and will be part of the analysis of data.

Sampling Design
This study will make use of the purposive sampling wherein it will utilize three groups of jurors with six members each, purposively group according to race  Jury 1  six white jurors, Jury 2  six black jurors, Jury 3  six jurors with mixed races. Each group will respectively view a uniformed video snippets of capital punishment cases and deliberate on the case afterwards. Decisions of the group will be recorded as for the conviction or not. In the video snippets, it will present cases involving defendants from different races who are accused of criminal offenses.

Statistical Treatment
To know the relationship among variables, the statistical treatment of chi-square will be used. The GPower statistical tool will be used for the analysis.  Coding will be used in order to make the inputs of the data easier, such as  Gender Female  0 Male 1 Race White1 Black2 Latino3 Asian4 Other5  Education Level 10yrs1 11yrs 2 12yrs3 13yrs4 14yrs5 etc.

In this study, the dependent variable is the decision of the jurors on capital punishment while the independent variables will be the racial background of the jurors, of the defendants, and of the victim.

Chi-square test is the best statistical tool in the GPower Analysis for this study. Accordingly, chi-square is the the sum of the squared difference between observed (o) and the expected (e) data (or the deviation, d), divided by the expected data in all possible categories (Fisher and Yates, 2010). In this study, it will specifically address variables based on these problems

Is there a significant difference between the race of the jurors and the race of the defendants with the decision of a capital punishment against the defendant will be used as basis

Is there a significant difference between the race of the jurors and the race of the victims with the decision of a capital punishment against the defendant will be used as basis

Meanwhile, frequency count will also be utilized as a minor statistical tool.

III. Recommendations
In order to further strengthen and establish the relationships among variables, it is considered that full exploitation of the GPower Analysis will be used in data recording for faster and accurate results. T-test can also be utilized as the statistical tool for this study.