Diverse juries eliminate the tendency to evaluate Black defendants’ cases less carefully

Evidence

Consistent with earlier findings (Sommers, 2006; Stevenson et al., 2017), White jurors who deliberated in diverse juries experienced greater cognitive depletion than did those who deliberated in homogenous juries composed mainly of other White jurors (Peter-Hagene, 2019). Cognitive depletion, however, did not result in decreased performance among White jurors deliberating in diverse juries. In fact, although nondiverse juries discussed more case facts when the defendant was White than when the defendant was Black, diverse juries eliminated this discrepancy. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 907

Categorization

• SEED: Angle for a legal-reform essay: jury diversity as a structural fix that works even though it imposes real cognitive cost on White jurors — a hidden price tag for egalitarian outcomes.
• XREF: Connects to Sommers 2006 earlier in this book, and to the broader interracial-interaction cognitive-load literature (Richeson & Shelton).