Injustice in the Courtroom: How Race and Ethnicity Affect Legal Outcomes

Race and ethnicity affect judgments and outcomes at many stages of the criminal justice and legal process, accumulating into significant disparities in incarceration rates for Black and Latinx defendants. This chapter provides an overview of recent research about the influence of race and ethnicity on trial outcomes and processes. Prosecutors often strike potential jurors of color, lowering diversity in juries. Juries with larger numbers of White jurors, in turn, may be more likely to convict defendants of color. Judges are more likely to give sentences involving incarceration to defendants of color, and both prosecutorial and jury biases contribute to racial disparities in the death penalty. Understanding biases in legal outcomes requires intersectional analyses that examine race in conjunction with other identities and consideration of multiple forms of bias (explicit, implicit, and structural). The chapter also discusses recent legal developments related to racial and ethnic disparities and directions for future research.