General Jurisdiction/Trial Courts

In this three-part webinar series titled “From the Community to the Courtroom: Increasing Diversity and Access to the Jury Box” the nation’s leading jury experts, scholars, and practitioners discussed why diverse juries matter, the challenges to achieving jury diversity, as well as what solutions and reforms are on the horizon.

These activities reflect the support provided to the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC). At the AOC’s request, CJI drafted three judicial bench cards to ensure judges have a clear understanding of legislative changes. The bench cards explain pretrial release decisions, sentencing options, and probation decisions resulting from the Alternatives to Incarceration Act. CJI worked with AOC to further clarify the language and design of these bench cards and finalized them for a judicial conference in June.

NACDL and NLADA emailed their membership lists about the launch of the Race and Defenders Survey in January 2022

Center, NLADA, and Brennan Center staff met to discuss plans for a future roundtable with clients and directly impacted individuals.

Center staff facilitated six calls with survey pilot testers to solicit their feedback on the survey questions.

Center, NLADA, NACDL, and RTI staff met to review survey and interview questions, and to continue planning for upcoming piloting of the survey questions.

Center staff participated in a call with representatives from Wayne County to discuss their unsuccessful research proposal on vertical representation.

Center, NLADA, NACDL, and RTI staff met to review survey questions and plan for upcoming piloting of the survey questions.

Center staff facilitated a final meeting with the full planning team from West Virginia and discussed next steps to continue the work started under this initiative.

Center and RTI staff met to review the timelines for survey and interviews to ensure alignment between the two pieces of the project.