175: The Gin & Juice Podcast | Love Island Breakdown, Real Housewives Mess & Summer Survival Tips

Uh, so we're gonna start with long story short, and we're just gonna give it over to Melonie.

Oh, yes.

[laughs]

So long story, not short.

Um, no, I'll make it short.

Uh, last week, uh, the episode, I got some feedback about something I said on last week's episode, um, that what I said came across as if I was telling Black people to lie, to go to jury duty and lie in order to get on a jury, and therefore let Black people free and/or make white people go to jail.

That is what the feedback I got sounded like I was trying to encourage.

It wasn't.

I would never.

That's not what I'm saying.

If that is how you took it, I want to apologize.

That is not what I was intending to say.

I don't believe that's what I said, but that's not what I was intending to say.

Um, what I want to say and be clear about is two things.

Um, the first is that there is research that shows, specifically a, um, Stanford, uh, research that shows that diversity when Black people are on juries, it encourages a more thorough deliberation, like just naturally.

It encourages conversations about race in a case if it exists, whereas if the research shows when it is a all-white jury, those conversations are not had.

It encourages...

The difference actually was that when just one Black person is on a jury, again, not that it makes the jury go one way or the other.

It just encourages a more thorough deliberation.

It actually found that, um, they make less factual mistakes when it is a diverse jury than when it is an all-white jury.

So my intention was to encourage people, particularly Black people because they are most underrepresented in juries, to go to jury duty when they get their summons.

And because I have sat in a jury selection process, I have heard with my own ears people who in my opinion, and I would argue many people who were in the rooms, their opinions that, um, people will say things like-

They intentionally try to get themselves out

... "I can't do this.

I am too..." And I have heard, right, in response to a person, anyone saying that the judge will press them.