ISSUE #16

Page 3

Center Projects (cont'd. from page 1)
existing data. This analysis will provide information on targeted questionnaire items and variables not previously analyzed or discussed in the prior report. The goal of this project is to determine what factors, as reported by Nevada's DAs, influence their decisions to seek or forego the death penalty in a technically eligible case. The factors include statutory aggravators and mitigators as well as other variables.

Study of Science-Based Educational Programs for Judges.  The Center has recently completed a report titled "Science Education Programs for the State and Federal Judiciary at Year 2001."  The Center received $15,000 from the Federal Judicial Center to update the findings of the 1992 survey conducted by the Carnegie Commission Task Force on Science and Technology in Judicial and Regulatory Decision Making.   Research assistants Mara Merlino (Project Coordinator), Roni Dahir, and Dionne Maxwell, under the direction of Director, Ron Dillehay, were responsible for this project. The final report provides an organized inventory of offerings on science education available to judges during the period 1992 through 2000.  The report brings together in one place offerings from diverse providers of judicial education (e.g., national education organizations, law schools, institutes, State Court Administrator Offices) that contain at least some component of science in courses, seminars, workshops, or other instructional formats.  The report identifies these providers, locates them by state and organization, and classifies their offerings according to the major realm or field of science covered in their educational programs. The report also lists multiple judicial science education offerings for some providers, making it possible to identify institutions or organizations that engage in more substantial judicial education activities. The report was submitted to the Federal Judicial Center in May 2001, and two manuscripts based these data have been produced.  One, titled "Science Education for the State and Federal Judiciary 1992-2000: What, Where, When, and by Whom?" is currently under review by Judge's Journal, and the other, titled "Science Education for Judges: Trends and Directions" is currently in progress.   

Adequacy of Voir Dire For Selecting an Impartial Jury. Steve Son, a graduate research assistant at the Center, with the Director, Ronald Dillehay, received a dissertation improvement grant of $14,237 from the National Science Foundation's Law and Social Sciences Program. This award will be used to support research designed to analyze the form of questioning that takes place by attorneys and judges during voir dire in capital trials. Results of the analyses would then be compared to the standards of interviewing set forth in the social sciences.

Washoe County Office of Court Services Project: Difficulties in Collecting Administrative Data in a Local Justice System. The Center collaborated with the Washoe County Office of Court Services on a project titled, "Washoe County Office of Court Services Project: Predictors of Failure to Appear." The original purpose of the project was to explore

predictors of successful release into the community of those arrested and awaiting trial in Washoe County, Nevada. Of 19,000 arrests in 1999, approximately 5,000 were released under some form of pretrial supervised release.  By determining which variables are predictive of success, the County could reduce its jail population by increasing the number of pretrial releases without significantly increasing the number of pretrial re-arrests and failure to appears (FTAs).  This project has been carried out by Bryan Edelman, research assistant, and Ronald Dillehay, Center Director, with guidance provided by Carl Hinxman of Washoe County Court Services and David Bennett, Washoe County consultant. Due to unforeseen difficulties with obtaining information from the various courts in Washoe County, the original project goal was not realized.  These problems were discussed in a progress report submitted to Washoe County justices and government officials and in a presentation at the annual meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association in Vancouver, B.C., Canada, in April 2002. Some of these administrative roadblocks include: differences in record keeping practices between agencies; incorrect coding of FTAs; and no data collection of pre-trial re-arrests by justice system agencies. 

Minimization of Jurors' Knowledge of Pretrial Publicity During Voir Dire.  Previous research has shown that some prospective jurors minimize their exposure and knowledge of information gleaned from the media before the onset of the trial in highly publicized cases.  It is important for the court to have an accurate comprehension of prospective jurors' knowledge in order to determine if that knowledge constitutes prejudice that would obstruct a prospective juror's requirement to be fair and impartial.  This project involves a content analysis of actual capital voir dire transcripts to determine the amount of minimization that prospective jurors employ during questioning on pretrial publicity.  Research assistants Steve Son, Craig New, and Andre Walton, are working with Director, Ron Dillehay on  this project.

A Model of Pretrial Prejudice in a High Profile Case. Progress is being made on an ongoing project using data from venue surveys in capital cases to develop a model of pretrial prejudgment of defendants.  The model is tested using variables available from venue surveys, such as media use habits, attitudes toward crime and the criminal justice system, amount of information known about the defendants and the crime, and social/demographic characteristics.  Craig New and Ronald Dillehay are heading the project. Preliminary results of this project were presented by New and co-authors Dillehay and Scott Shonkwiler, of UNR's Department of Applied Economics and Statistics, in a paper titled "The Mass Media's Influence of Judgments of Defendants" at the annual meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association in Vancouver, B.C., Canada in April 2002.  We are currently analyzing additional data sets to test the generalizability of the model to other cases and circumstances.