Race & Ethnicity Studies / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Colorblind Racial Bias and the Courts

After a New Jersey Supreme Court ruling, jurors in the state of New Jersey will now be asked to consider problems regarding the reliability of eyewitness identifications.  The new court-mandated jury instructions warn jurors, among other things, that, “research has shown that people may have greater difficulty in accurately identifying members of a different race.”  Judges must now ask jurors to “consider whether the fact that the witness and the defendant are not of the same race may have influenced...