Careful Statistical Reasoning Can Provide Support for Supreme Court Decisions

摘要

This winter, the Supreme Court considered the case of Diapolis Smith, an African-American man convicted in 1993 of second-degree murder by an all-white jury in Kent County, Michigan. Smith requested a new trial, arguing that minorities were under-represented on venires in the county. The statistics employed in Berghuis v. Smith exemplify the increasingly important role statistical evidence plays in legal cases and the larger role statistical inference could play.