In 1968, Dr. Benjamin Spock and others were tried for conspiracy to violate the Selective
Service Act by encouraging resistance to the Vietnam War. By a series of three selections, there
ended up being no women on the jury. Dr. Spock was a well known pediatrician and author of
books about raising children. Millions of mothers had read his books and followed his advice.
Did the court prejudice the verdict by keeping women off the jury? The jury selection process is
shown below.
Stage 1. The clerk of the Federal District Court
selected 350 people "at random" from the Boston
City Directory. The directory contained several hun-
dred names, 53% of whom were women. However,
only 102 of the 350 people selected were women.
Stage 2. The trial judge, Judge Ford, selected 100
people "at random" from the 350 people. This group
was called a venire and it contained only nine
women.
Stage 3. The court clerk assigned numbers to the
members of the venire and one by one, they were
interrogated by the attorneys for the prosecution
and defense until 12 members of the jury were cho-
sen. At this stage, only one potential female juror
was questioned and she was eliminated by the pros-
ecutor under his quota of peremptory challenges
(for which he did not have to give a reason).
Using statistical procedures, examine the likelihood of what happened in both Stage 1 and
Stage 2. Show all work and write an overall conclusion explaining your results so a non-
statistical person could understand.