Hamilton County Jury Selection
Hamilton County uses voter registration as the sole basis for selecting its jury pools. This fact results in a disparity between the percentage of minorities in the community (approx. 23%), and the percentage of minorities called for jury duty (approx. 17%). Fellows are researching alternative methods used by other comparable cities, such as selecting jurors by driver's license registration or utility bills, to see whether the employment of these methods results in a racial distribution that better reflects the racial composition of the community. Fellows will issue a report to the CAN Commission summarizing their findings, and may recommend that Hamilton County alter its jury pool selection mechanism.

Cincinnati Clean Air Project
Cincinnati recently repealed Title X, the City's primary environmental protection statute. A primary reason for Title X's repeal was that it created a bureaucracy, the Office of Environmental Management ("OEM"), that many felt was not cost effective. Fellows will research Clean Air Acts in cities comparable to Cincinnati in an attempt to find a replacement for Title X that is more cost effective and politically palatable. One possibility would be to replace the OEM with a mechanism that allows for citizen lawsuits, a structure that would empower groups such as the Sierra Club without costs to the city. Fellows participating in this project will make a formal presentation to Cincinnati City Council at the conclusion of their efforts, and may present draft legislation for City Council to consider.

Judicial Selection in Ohio
Ohio's practice of selecting its judges through the elective process has been criticized for years, and has been a particularly controversial topic as of late. Ohio Supreme Court Justice Moyer has convened a committee to examine alternative methods of selecting judges. Working with Professor Solomine, a group of fellows would write a position paper to Moyer's committee, examining the alternative methods and pros and cons of each.

Ohio's Flawed Real Estate Tax Assessment System
Homeowners in Ohio who feel that the county auditor has unfairly assessed the value of their home in comparison to the assessments of their neighbors' homes do not have the right (as do homeowners in all other 49 states) to have their assessments LOWERED in line with their neighbors. Instead, the only "remedy" for Ohio homeowners is to sue their neighbors to have their assessments INCREASED. Of course, no one ever does this and the result is to remove one of the checks and balances that help keep tax auditors in other states in line. Fellows would examine this law in Ohio and then research whether the lack of these checks and balances has resulted in racial disparities in the way homes are taxed. For example, Fellows may compare the assessed values of homes that have recently sold to their sales prices to determine the relative disparities in neighborhoods with different racial compositions. Are homes in predominantly minority neighborhoods assessed proportionately closer to their sales prices than homes in predominantly white neighborhoods? In addition, Fellows may draft proposed legislation to bring the Ohio real estate tax assessment system in line with the other 49 states.

Victim's Rights Law Reform Project
A member of the University of Cincinnati Law School community was shot in 2002, resulting in serious injury. That person is currently engaged in a civil lawsuit with the perpetrator. She has discovered that Ohio is in the minority of states that does not allow the victim of a crime to use the perpetrator's felony conviction as conclusive evidence that the acts occurred in a civil case. This law has placed this individual in the frustrating position of having to reprove that her perpetrator committed the shooting, despite the fact that he has already been convicted of the crime. Fellows would research the law on this issue, and write a report summarizing the law and trends on this issue nationwide. Then, in conjunction with State Senator Mark Mallory's office, Fellows would draft legislation that Mallory would present to the Ohio legislature. This project would hopefully move Ohio to the majority of states allowing victims to use felony convictions in appropriate ways in civil cases.

Local Crime Media Study
Fellows working on this project would replicate a study of local television news in Chicago, to see if television news in Cincinnati engages in similar mistreatment of minorities in connection with local crime stories. Studying the 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. news of the four major networks for a period of 12 weeks, and controlled for other factors, the Chicago study found, among other things, that: 1) minority suspects were substantially more likely to be shown in handcuffs, in a mug shot, or in prison garb than white suspects; 2) white suspects were substantially more likely to have "their side of the story told" in the news story by their attorney or a family member than non-whites; 3) crimes allegedly committed by minorities were substantially more likely to be selected as the lead story than were identical crimes allegedly committed by whites. Fellows will duplicate the process of this report in Cincinnati, and issue a report containing detailed findings.