In Week 8, you must submit a formal research paper (10-15 pages), which will be worth 45% of your course grade. Your paper needs to analyze the jury selection process and its relationship to both: (a) Constitutional law, and (b) an allied field (e.g., education, history, law enforcement, public administration, public policy, psychology, sociology, technology, etc.). By definition then, you will be required to address the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees a defendant the right to a trial by a fair and impartial jury.
Within your research paper, you must discuss:
- Peremptory challenges
- Challenge for cause
- Whether jurors may testify about their deliberations in the event of possible racial or ethnic bias.
- Racial or ethnic bias
- Whether virtual jury trials comply with the fairness and impartiality goals of the Sixth Amendment.
- You may also address other subtopics that relate to the allied field requiredcomponent.
For this assignment, due in Week 2:
1. Research existing case law to analyze how the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled in an effort to achieve the Sixth Amendment’s chief goal.
a. Analyze at least four cases (three of which must be from 1990 to the present). Make sure that all of your cases are still good law.
b. Research at least five law review or other academic quality journal articles regarding criminal jury selection and the Sixth Amendment.
c. Identify the four cases and five law review / other academic journal articles that you intend to use in your research paper. (You will be able to collect more resources throughout the course.)
d. Explain in detail how you determined that the cases you will use are still good law and likely to be of value to you as you construct your research paper.
2. Given the required topic and its components:
a. What is your thesis statement? What do you plan to prove or illustrate in your research paper?
b. Outline your intended plan to research, analyze, and synthesize what you learn in order to build your research paper. What tools do you expect to use? What criteria will you use to assess relevance, currency, authority, accuracy, purpose, audience and/or ideological perspective, etc. for your research project?
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Note: You must approach this research project objectively; let what you learn through your research and analytical efforts guide you to the actual answers to the question(s) raised in or by your thesis statement. But that does not prevent you from identifying what you wish to explore within your research paper; that is what your thesis statement should address.
