24.19 Bias in the jury pool? The New Zealand Department of Justice did a study of the composition of juries in court cases. Of interest was whether Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, were adequately represented in jury pools. Here are the results for two districts, Rotura and Nelson, in New Zealand (similar results were found in all districts):

Rotura
MaoriNon-Maori
In jury pool79258
Not in jury pool881023,751
Total888924,009
Nelson
MaoriNon-Maori
In jury pool156
Not in jury pool132832,602
Total132932,658

  1. (a) Use these data to make a two-way table of race (Maori or non-Maori) versus jury pool status (In or Not in).

  2. (b) Show that Simpson’s paradox holds: a higher percentage of Maori are in the jury pool overall, but for both districts, a higher percentage of non-Maori are in the jury pool.

  3. (c) Use the data to explain the paradox in language that a judge could understand.