>>> Item number 1141, dated 95/02/27 19:51:02 -- ALL
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 19:51:02 -0600 Reply-To: H-Net and ASLH Legal History Discussion list <H-LAW@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: H-Net and ASLH Legal History Discussion list <H-LAW@UICVM.BITNET> From: Chris Waldrep <cfcrw@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu> Subject: female jurors
From: Julie Johnson-McGrath <mcgrath@husc.harvard.edu>
I realize that the answer to my question varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but I would like to know when women began to be empanelled as jurors in the United States. I have the impression that it was sooner in the West than in the East, and that the practice by no means followed immediately upon the receipt of suffrage. I also have anecdotal evidence that women were excluded from the jury pool in certain criminal cases lest their allegedly more delicate sensibilities be affected. Is this contention borne out by anyone's research? And what about civil cases? Considering the concern critics of the jury have over the lack of business experience and financial expertise of the average working-class male juror, I cannot see them embracing the empanellment of women--even middle-class women.
Thanks for any help you can give,
Julie Johnson-McGrath, Ph.D.
History of Science
Harvard University
mcgrath@fas.harvard.edu
>>> Item number 1145, dated 95/02/28 20:14:48 -- ALL
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 20:14:48 -0600 Reply-To: H-Net and ASLH Legal History Discussion list <H-LAW@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: H-Net and ASLH Legal History Discussion list <H-LAW@UICVM.BITNET> From: Chris Waldrep <cfcrw@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu> Subject: Female Jurors
Message-Id: <199502281333.AA210058424@lulu.acns.nwu.edu>
There is a vast difference from state to state. You should read Joanna Grossman's article entitled "Women's Jury Service: Right of Citizenship or Privilege of Difference" Stanford Law Review, Vol. 46 p.1115.
Ricki Shine
Department of History
Northwestern University
Evanston, Il
jss389@lulu.acns.nwu.edu
From: "Jeffrey W. Reed" <jreed02@emory.edu>
On women and the legal system- including juries- at least in the 19th century, Dr. Johnson=McGrath might look at an article by Jane M Pederson "Gender, Justice and a Wisconsin Lynching, 1889-1890" in _Agricultural History_ Spring 1993- this has an interesting discussion of women and the legal system c. 1890 in the upper midwest.
Jeff Reed
Emory University
jreed02@emory.edu
From: Michael J Hagburg <hagburg@badlands.NoDak.edu>
North Dakota by statute gave women the right to serve on juries in 1921. The grant was challenged in 1934 by a person who was tried with women on the jury, and the validity of the grant was affirmed by the state supreme court. As recently as 1962 three states barred women from jury service while others granted automatic exemptions from jury service to women. You might look at Carol Weisbrod's article, Images of the Woman Juror, 9 Harvard Women's Law Journal 59, for more information.
>>> Item number 1153, dated 95/03/01 19:48:09 -- ALL
Date: Wed, 1 Mar 1995 19:48:09 -0600 Reply-To: H-Net and ASLH Legal History Discussion list <H-LAW@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: H-Net and ASLH Legal History Discussion list <H-LAW@UICVM.BITNET> From: Chris Waldrep <cfcrw@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu> Subject: Re: female jurors
From: Carol West <west@mc.edu>
My apologies for giving you the year from recollection, but I cannot locate my notes and I am replying from memory. If you need to be absolutely certain, let me know and I will check the statute.
I do not know if Mississippi was the last state to allow women to serve on juries, but the state did not amend its statutes to allow this until about 1970. There is no restriction on service.
As recently as 1966, _State v. Hall_, 187 So.2d 861 (1966), the Mississippi Supreme Court wrote:
"The legislature has the right to exclude women so they may continue their service as mothers, wives, and homemakers, and also to protect them (in some areas, they are still upon a pedestal) from the filth, obscenity, and noxious atmosphere that so often pervades a courtroom during a jury trial."
Seems surprising, after that, that women were allowed to be sworn in to practice as members of the bar!
Carol C. West e-mail: west@mc.edu Mississippi College School of Law phone: (601) 944-1950 151 E. Griffith Street Jackson, MS 39201
>>> Item number 1155, dated 95/03/02 16:47:28 -- ALL
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 1995 16:47:28 -0600 Reply-To: H-Net and ASLH Legal History Discussion list <H-LAW@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: H-Net and ASLH Legal History Discussion list <H-LAW@UICVM.BITNET> From: Chris Waldrep <cfcrw@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu> Subject: Re: female jurors in Mississippi
Supplemental to Carol's recent message:--a call to our local circuit clerk's office got me the information that female jurors began being used here in Mississippi in 1970 as the result of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
Michael Landon
Professor of History
Univ. of Mississippi
{hslandon@vm.cc.olemiss.edu}