Pii: S0144-8188(00)00028-4

In considering the expected social loss of the jury process, we investigate the role of peremptory challenges based on observable juror characteristics such as race or gender. The effectiveness of peremptory challenges depends on the relative social costs of incorrect verdicts and hung juries, and on jury pool population demographics. Some of our results are: (a) for a defendant clearly in the majority, awarding peremptory challenges is unlikely to be optimal because of increased wrongful acquittal costs; (b) for a defendant clearly in the minority, asymmetric challenges in favor of the defense may be optimal but only if wrongful conviction costs are “very large” compared to hung jury costs; (c) when optimal, more symmetric challenges should be awarded the less biased the population, but more asymmetric challenges should be awarded the more biased the population; (d) to reduce wrongful acquittal costs, it may be optimal to award asymmetric peremptory challenges in favor of the prosecution; and (e) our results offer no support for the complete elimination of peremptory challenges. © 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.