Timing and Type of Pretrial Publicity Affect Mock-Jurors’ Decisions and Predecisional Distortion

Abstract

This experiment administered pretrial publicity (PTP) using a <i>spaced</i> procedure in which mock-jurors were exposed to eight PTP stories over a period of 10 to 12 days prior to viewing a murder trial and making verdict decisions. The type of PTP varied, with mock-jurors in the <i>pure</i> PTP conditions receiving only one type of PTP (negative only or positive only) and those in the <i>mixed</i> conditions receiving both negative and positive PTP. Jurors in the mixed conditions either received PTP in an <i>alternating</i> fashion (e.g., negative, positive, negative, positive) or a <i>blocked</i> fashion (e.g., negative, negative, positive, positive). The spacing of PTP and the mixed PTP exposure allowed us to examine recency and primacy effects associated with PTP exposure, as well as predecisional distortion during PTP exposure. PTP exposure resulted in recency effects for mock-jurors’ choice of current case leader while reading the PTP stories. Primacy effects were found for mean distortion scores measured during PTP exposure and for verdicts. Although jurors in our mixed PTP conditions received the same positive and negative PTP stories, they significantly differed on mean distortion scores and verdicts as a function of the timing/order of these stories.