Chakravarti’s lecture, titled “The Role of Juries in Social Change,” will focus on criminal trials and the citizens who act as jurors and how they can play a critical role in the evolution of political and legal norms. She contends that while verdicts are often dismissed as isolated incidents, jury decisions can point to a future set of legal norms that might be adopted as a result of the jury’s actions.
“Sonali Chakravarti’s work is fascinating and timely, as the courts are often the forum in which controversial and complicated issues are being decided,” said Patricia Proctor, director of the Simon Perry Center for Constitutional Democracy, which sponsors the Amicus Curiae Lecture Series. “She points to times that jurors’ decisions can lead and have led to significant change, and uses well-known and notable cases to illustrate her point.”
Chakravarti will analyze involving the Black Panthers in New Haven in 1970, and Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis in 2021 to explain how jury trials play a critical role in educating the public about vexing and difficult issues and in shaping the legal system both inside and outside the courtroom.
Chakravarti is the author of two books, Radical Enfranchisement in the Jury Room and Public Life, and Sing the Rage: Listening to Anger After Mass Violence. She also writes for popular media including The Atlantic and the Guardian and has authored many peer-reviewed articles in publications including Political Theory and the Journal of Law, Culture and the Humanities.
She earned her Bachelor of Arts from Swarthmore College and her Ph.D. from Yale University and has taught in Wesleyan’s Government Department and College of Social Studies since 2009.
The lecture is sponsored by Marshall’s Simon Perry Center for Constitutional Democracy with support from the West Virginia Humanities Council, and is free and open to the public.