Writings
We will combine all of our project's findings in a book, The Jury and Democracy: How Jury Deliberation Promotes Civic Engagement and Political Participation (Oxford University Press, forthcoming in late 2009). For now, you can read a brief summary of the book. In the meantime, we have already published or drafted the scholarly articles listed below.
Publications
Gastil, J., Deess, E. P., Weiser, P., & Meade, J. (in press). Jury service and electoral participation: A test of the participation hypothesis. Journal of Politics, 70, 1-16. Main finding: Jury service makes people more likely to vote in future elections. This refines the results of the 2002 study (below) by looking in more detail at a larger juror sample from multiple locales in the United States.
Gastil, J., Leighter, J., Black, L., & Deess, E. P. (2008). From small group member to citizen: Measuring the impact of jury deliberation on citizen identity and civic norms. Human Communication Research, 34, 137-169. Previous version presented at the 2005 annual conference of the National Communication Association, Boston, MA. Main finding: Jury deliberation promotes more positive civic attitudes.
Hickerson, A., & Gastil, J. (in press). Assessing the difference critique of deliberation: Gender, emotion and the jury experience. Communication Theory, 18, 281-303. Main finding: Jurors from different backgrounds give very similar assessments of their deliberation, contrary to what some critics had expected.
Gastil, J., Burkhalter, S., & Black, L. (2007). Do juries deliberate? A study of deliberation, individual difference, and group member satisfaction at a municipal courthouse. Small Group Research, 38, 337-359. Main finding: Jurors generally believe they deliberated and what individual and group characteristics were conducive to higher levels of deliberation.
Gastil, J., & Weiser, P. (2006). Jury service as an invitation to citizenship: Assessing the civic value of institutionalized deliberation. Policy Studies Journal, 34, 605-627. Main finding: Satisfying jurors' expectations for jury service yields changes in selected civic and political behaviors.
Gall, A., & Gastil, J. (2006). The magic of Raymond Burr: How jury orientation prepares citizens for jury service. Court Manager, 21(2), 27-31. Main finding: Exposure to jury orientation briefly increases prospective jurors' approval of the jury system and their willingness to serve.
Gastil, J., Deess, E. P., & Weiser, P. (2002). Civic awakening in the jury room: A test of the connection between jury deliberation and political participation. Journal of Politics, 64, 585-595. Main finding: Jury service promotes future voting in Thurston County, Wash. More recent 2008 study (above) elaborates on these findings.
Executive Summary for Study Participants
Gastil, J., Weiser, P., & Deess, E. P. Executive Summary of findings for King County survey participants. (2006). Summarizes some research findings and describes political activities and attitudes in King County.
Conference Papers and Article Submissions
Gastil, J., Fukurai, H., Anderson, K., & Nolan, M. (2006). Seeing is believing: The impact of jury service on attitudes toward legal institutions and the implications for international jury reform. Pending resubmission to Judicature. Main finding: Jury service influences attitudes toward juries and judges.
Gastil, J., & Xenos, M. (2006). Of attitudes and engagement: Clarifying the reciprocal relationship between civic attitudes and political participation. Under review at Journal of Communication. Shows precisely which political behaviors and attitudes mutually influence one another.
Sprain, L., & Gastil, J. (2006). What Does It Mean to Deliberate? An Interpretative Account of the Norms and Rules of Deliberation Expressed by Jurors. Under review at Journal of Applied Communication Research. Shows how jurors conceptualize and experience deliberation, using jurors' own written accounts of their jury service.
Additional Writings
Consolini, P. (1992). Learning by doing justice: Private jury service and political attitudes. Doctoral dissertation, University of California at Berkeley. This landmark study, funded by the National Science Foundation, helped to close the gaps between jury research, political participation research, and studies of the relationship between legal institutions and political attitudes.
Drafts In Progress
The Jury and Democracy: How Jury Deliberation Promotes Civic Engagement and Political Participation (Oxford University Press, forthcoming in late 2009). At this time, we have made available a brief summary of the book's main argument.
Sprain, L., Black, L., & Gastil, J. (2008). First among Strangers: The Selection of Forepersons and Their Experience as Leaders in Civil and Criminal Juries. Executive summary submitted to 2008 INGRoup conference. Looks at the unique experience of serving as a jury foreperson.
Simmons, C., Weiser, P., & Gastil, J. (2006). Toqueville’s Jury: A modern reassessment of the civic role of jury service in the United States. Main finding: Shows that the details of jurors' subjective impressions of their jury service predict a variety of subsequent changes in their political/civic attitudes and behaviors.