In this work, Hans and Vidmar review the historical evolution of the trial jury, the contemporary role of the jury in the American criminal justice system, and future prospects for the jury as an institutional force. (Choice)
Valerie P. Hans is a professor at Cornell Law School, where she teaches courses on social science and law, torts, the jury, and empirical legal studies. She's been researching and writing about the jury system for over four decades, beginning in graduate school at the University of Toronto, where she conducted her first empirical research studies on the jury system. Before coming to Cornell, she taught for many years at the University of Delaware.
Her books on the jury system include: American Juries: The Verdict (2007, coauthored with Neil Vidmar); The Jury System: Contemporary Scholarship (2006); Business on Trial: The Civil Jury and Corporate Responsibility (2000); and Judging the Jury (1986, coauthored with Neil Vidmar).
She has also coauthored books on law and social science, Everyday Practices and Trouble Cases, and Crossing Boundaries.
In the last several years, Professor Hans has developed a new interest in comparing how citizens are employed as legal decision makers in different countries -- either as jurors or as citizen members of mixed courts composed of both professional and lay judges. Her comparative work has taken her to Argentina, China, France, Japan, Russia, and Taiwan.
Right now she's looking at how well juries reflect the population: check out this recent blog post over at the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy blog: http://www.jlpp.org/2012/01/20/jury-representativeness-its-no-joke-in-the-state-of-new-york/.
