ABSTRACT
This chapter considers three contrasting views of bias and their relationships to the ideal of fair representation in the selection of juries and judges. As a nation, the lawyers seem to want those who sit in judgment to have no axes to grind, no prejudgments about the people or issues they confront. They also want them to have the ability to empathize with others, to evaluate credibility, to know what is fair in this world, not in a laboratory. And the lawyers want jurors and judges to have, and to remember, experiences that enable their empathy and evaluative judgments. This ambivalence reflects a misunderstanding of the preconditions for impartiality and of the role of fair representation in producing impartial jurors and panels of judges. A confluence of the goals of fair representation and impartiality thus exists. Both include a basic idea about the distribution of experiences necessary to render fair judgments.
