Jury Decision Research Articles

Jurors believe interrogation tactics are not likely to elicit false confessions: will expert witness testimony inform them otherwise?

Situational factors – in the form of interrogation tactics – have been reported to unduly influence innocent suspects to confess. This study assessed jurors' perceptions of these factors and tested whether expert witness testimony on confessions informs jury decision making. In Study 1, jurors rated interrogation tactics on their level of coerciveness and likelihood that each would elicit true and false confessions. Most jurors perceived interrogation tactics to be coercive and likely to elicit confessions from guilty, but not from innocent suspects. This result motivated Study 2 in which an actual case involving a disputed confession was used to assess the influence of expert testimony on jurors' perceptions and evaluations of interrogations and confession evidence. The results revealed an important influence of expert testimony on mock-jurors decisions.

Jury and Judge Decisions: The Severity of Punishments in Cordoba Mixed Tribunals

Lay participation has historically been viewed as a mechanism to lessen the severity of punishments proposed by magistrates. Nevertheless, its implementation in Cordoba (Argentina) takes place in the opposite situation, when the citizens request a tough response from the judges. The article reviews how the tensions between the guarantee-based approach, typical of judges and lawyers and the demand for penal harshness - coming from common citizens - are handled in the implementation of this experience. The analysis uses data obtained in the sentences pronounced in the period 2005-2007, and interviews to lawyers, magistrates and common citizens who served as jurors.

Dangerous Deliberation: Subjective Probability and Rhetorical Democracy in the Jury Room

Anxiety about the deliberative abilities of ordinary citizens, feared to be too easily influenced by the powers of rhetoric, has accompanied democracy since its birth. This anxiety is reflected in critiques of the American jury system. This article examines efforts in the middle of the twentieth century to rationalize jury decision making through the use of mathematical probability. These efforts—one a trial in which a prosecutor used dubious statistics to help convict a couple of a robbery and the other a call for juries to use formulas for assessing the likelihood of guilt—reflect a desire to simultaneously harness and contain the dangerousness of rhetoric. More significantly, proposals to mathematize jury decision making individualize deliberation and privilege expert over everyday knowledge, signaling a threat not only to this important feature of American democracy but also to the ability of citizens to deliberate collectively in debates increasingly dominated by statistical reasoning.

Putting Aside the Rule of Law Myth: Corruption and the Case for Juries in Emerging Democracies

Scholars have theorized that rule-of-law reform in post-communist Central Asia and Eastern Europe has been thwarted by a Soviet legacy of disrespect for the law. These scholars argue that ingrained practices of nepotism, influence-peddling, and corruption have undermined formal institutions and left little room for the of to grow. Thus, they argue, successful of reform depends as much upon changing the beliefs that people have about the as it does upon reforming legal institutions. This argument has resonated with rule-of-law aid practitioners, resulting in a proliferation of civic education programs in post-Soviet states designed to foster a of culture. Using Mongolia as a primary case study, the article contests the assumptions underlying the civic education approach to rule-of-law reform. It also argues that, given the socio-political realities of many countries in which rule-of-law education programs have been implemented, they are not only likely to fail, but to lead to disillusionment, cynicism, and further disrespect for the law. In some cases, they also risk legitimating unjust laws and authoritarian regimes. This article proposes an alternative to the rule-of-law project: Juries. Rule-of-law reformers have largely rejected jury systems on the ground that juries often disregard or cannot understand the law. Reformers have also feared that juries would discourage foreign investment by introducing just the type of uncertainty that rule of law is meant to prevent. This article responds that, in emerging democracies, certainty is less important than contextualized justice that reflects community values. It also argues that the deliberative process of jury decision-making promotes civic engagement, allows broader democratic participation in the law-making project, and may effectively check judicial corruption. Thus, juries may help restore faith in judicial institutions and lead emerging democracies closer to the of ideal.

Understanding attribution of blame in cases of rape: An analysis of participant gender, type of rape and perceived similarity to the victim

This study examined a variety of factors that may influence attributions towards rape victims. A total of 156 participants completed a questionnaire, which included a measure of attitudes towards rape victims and a vignette depicting one of three rape scenarios (a stranger rape, date rape and seduction rape). Participants rated the extent to which they blamed the rape victim as well as the degree to which they identified with the victim and perpetrator. Results indicated that male participants blamed the victim to a greater extent than did female participants, with participants consistently attributing most blame to the victim in the seduction rape scenario, then the date rape scenario, and finally the stranger rape scenario. Perceptions of similarity to the rape victim and perpetrator were correlated negatively with attributions of blame. These findings have important implications for juror selection, jury decision-making and attempts to improve the conviction rate in rape cases.

Communicating Results of All Outpatient Radiologic Examinations Directly to Patients: The Time Has Come

571 abnormal findings on a radiologic exam­ ination that he had ordered. He contended that had he received the report verbally from the radiologist in this case he would have immediately started the patient on anti­ coagulant therapy. Nevertheless, when pressed by the plaintiff’s attorney, the physician admitted that he had neglected to read the written report. The lawsuit against the referring physician was soon settled, but the malpractice case against the radiologist proceeded to trial. At trial, radiology experts for the plaintiff and for the defense disagreed in their re spec­ tive testimony. The former asserted that the defendant radiologist breached the standard of care by not completing his effort to directly communicate with the referring physician. The defense expert countered that there was no need for such direct com mu nication and that faxing the report was sufficient. At the conclusion of the trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the radiologist. The plaintiff appealed, and the case reached the Virginia Supreme Court. The court reversed the jury decision, ordered a new trial, and in so doing stated the following [3]:

Jury and Judge Decisions: The Severity of Punishments in Cordoba Mixed Tribunals

Jury and Judge Decisions: The Severity of Punishments in Cordoba Mixed Tribunals

A Jury of One: Opinion Formation, Conformity, and Dissent on Juries

Approximately 6% of criminal juries hang. But, how many dissenters carry the jury, hang the jury, or conform to the majority's wishes? We examine the role of the dissenter, using felony data of nearly 3,500 jurors. Jurors were asked, If it were entirely up to you as a one-person jury, what would your verdict have been in this case? Over one-third of jurors privately would have voted against their jury's decision. These data identify jurors who dissent and distinguish dissenters who hang the jury and dissenters who acquiesce. Jurors' role expectations, evidentiary views, sense of fairness, and deliberation procedures affected the likelihood for dissent.

Race, Prosecution, and Juries: The Death Penalty in Tennessee

The behavior of prosecutors and juries with respect to the decision to impose the death penalty is examined. Using data on 968 first-degree murder convictions in Tennessee from 1977 to 2006, models of prosecutorial and jury behavior are constructed with a focus on the role of the defendant's race and the victim's race. Once significant controls are introduced, neither the race of the defendant nor that of the victim is a significant predictor of prosecutors' decisions to seek the death penalty. Nor is the race of the victim a significant predictor of the jury's decision to impose the death penalty. The defendant's race is a significant, albeit weak, predictor of jury behavior, but only because white defendants are more likely to be sentenced to death. While a number of other variables are significantly related to both prosecutorial and jury behavior, much of the variance in these decisions remains unexplained.

Analysis of hispanic representation and conceptualization in psychology and law research

Hispanics are now the largest minority group in the United States, yet research examining the impact this will have on the American legal system is limited. The first purpose of this article was to synthesize the studies that have been conducted, which have found that Hispanics have a perspective toward the police, the courts and the law, and jury decision making that is unique from those of Caucasians and other ethnic groups. The second purpose of this article was to analyze whether psychology and law research has been conducted in a manner conducive to identifying this unique Hispanic perspective. An analysis of 800 articles published in five psychology and law journals revealed that, while Hispanics were typically conceptualized properly, the proportion of articles devoted to the Hispanic perspective is disturbingly low. To increase understanding of the Hispanic perspective, psychology and law researchers must increase the amount of empirical attention given to Hispanics.

The Effects of Expert Testimony about Eyewitness Memory on Jury Decision Making

The Effects of Expert Testimony about Eyewitness Memory on Jury Decision Making

Imperfect Utilitarians: Risk Assessment and 'High Conflict' Moral Questions

This work-in-progress examines how individuals calculate risk in cognitive system conflict situations where Kantian and Utilitarian values oppose each other. A survey was conducted in which respondents showed a significant change in value preferences compared to baseline when a risk element was introduced, indicating that individuals make systematic errors in risk calculation when faced with cognitively difficult choices between competing value systems. The Paper concludes by examining the implications of this finding for jury decisionmaking and regulatory policy choice.

Blinded by Science

Using a social construction of reality perspective, this article examines the social distance between popular media depictions of criminal investigations and reality, and the extent to which these depictions influence criminal jury trials. Data were collected from a nationally representative, random sample of trial counsel and judges and was analyzed using qualitative methods. Results indicate there is a great deal of social distance between popular media depictions of criminal investigation and reality. Moreover, jurors appear to have no tools to assess the credibility of forensic testing on television shows or in trials. Furthermore, the social construction of reality on forensic television shows has not only influenced jury decisions but has also affected the ways in which trial counsel and judges do their jobs. Suggestions for further research and discussion of public policy implications are included in the study.

Judges and Juries: The Defense Case and Differences in Acquittal Rates

Kalven and Zeisel's (1966 ) classic study, The American Jury, concluded that juries were “in revolt” from the law when they acquitted when judges would have convicted. Using data collected by the National Center for State Courts to examine jury decision making in four different communities, this article reexamines the question of the judge and jury's respective fidelity to the law and evidence by examining the influence on judge and jury of the defendant's evidence, his criminal record, and his reason for refusing to plead. No data can tell us definitively whether the judge is correct and the jury in error when they disagree, but the data analyzed in the present study can tell us whether the factors that move the jury and fail to move the judge are or are not consistent with the innocence of the accused.

The effects of accomplice witnesses and jailhouse informants on jury decision making.

The present study presents one of the first investigations of the effects of accomplice witnesses and jailhouse informants on jury decision-making. Across two experiments, participants read a trial transcript that included either a secondary confession from an accomplice witness, a jailhouse informant, a member of the community or a no confession control. In half of the experimental trial transcripts, the participants were made aware that the cooperating witness providing the secondary confession was given an incentive to testify. The results of both experiments revealed that information about the cooperating witness' incentive (e.g., leniency or reward) did not affect participants' verdict decisions. In Experiment 2, participant jurors appeared to commit the fundamental attribution error, as they attributed the motivation of the accomplice witness and jailhouse informant almost exclusively to personal factors as opposed to situational factors. Furthermore, both experiments revealed that mock jurors voted guilty significantly more often when there was a confession relative to a no confession control condition. The implications of the use of accomplice witness and jailhouse informant testimony are discussed.

JUSTICE, JURIES, AND CONVICTIONS: THE RELEVANCE OF RACE IN JURY VERDICTS

ABSTRACT Previous research has suggested that the racial composition of a jury plays a role in the likelihood of conviction of certain defendants. In general, it has been supported that White jury members are more likely to vote to convict Black defendants, while Black jury members are more likely to vote to acquit Black defendants. Prior research has suffered from flaws that could possibly affect these outcomes. For instance, the use of mock juries to examine jury behavior creates artificiality and may not adequately reflect real jury decision-making. Additionally, research on real juries either focuses on certain types of cases (i.e., capital cases) or suffers from problems relating to insufficient or incomplete trial or jury data. As a result, existing jury research has failed to fully capture or explain the factors that are related to jury-decision-making in non-capital felony trials. The current research examined case outcomes in real jury trials of defendants charged with non-capital felonies. In particular, the current study analyzed the relationship between the racial composition of the jury and conviction of black defendants. Results indicated a significant relationship between these two variables.

Public Deliberation as the Organizing Principle of Political Communication Research

During the past fifteen years, public deliberation has become an important focus of research, theory, and public practice. This has sometimes led to a variety of narrow conceptualizations that limit deliberation to particular forms of interaction, such as small group discussion, or to divergent conceptualizations deployed in different contexts, such as for media systems versus face-to-face discussions. To address this problem, we advance a flexible yet precise definition of deliberation that has the power to organize not only deliberation theory and research but also much of the larger body of work in political communication. As defined herein, deliberation includes both analytic and social processes and provides a unifying conceptual and critical framework for studying nearly the full range of political communication topics, including informal conversation, media and public opinion, elections, government institutional behavior, jury decision making, public meetings, and civic and community life. Using our flexible conceptualization, each of these research contexts amounts to a kind of deliberative critique and empirical analysis of public life.

The Influence of Race, Heuristics, and Information Load on Judgments of Guilt and Innocence

This study applies the heuristic-systematic model to explore the influence of race and judicial-system heuristics on jury decision-making. In a mock-jury investigation, a 3 × 2 experimental design varied a trial description's information load (high, medium, low) and defendant's race (Caucasian, African American). Two participant groups (Caucasian, African American) judged defendant characteristics and guilt. Observations demonstrate that race and legal-system heuristics alter guilt judgments. First, although Caucasian judgments were unaffected by race, an accused African American benefited from disproportionately positive judgments by African American appraisers. Second, information load moderated heuristic influence on guilt judgments. High load strengthened the negative effect of perceived judicial-system bias on verdicts of innocence.

UNDERSTANDING THE INFLUENCE OF VICTIM GENDER IN DEATH PENALTY CASES: THE IMPORTANCE OF VICTIM RACE, SEX‐RELATED VICTIMIZATION, AND JURY DECISION MAKING*

Using data from the Baldus, Woodworth, and Pulaski (1990) study of Georgia's death penalty system, we examine the influence of victim gender in death penalty cases. Furthermore, to improve our understanding of the meaning of victim gender, we consider 1) the joint effects of victim gender and victim race, 2) victimization characteristics that might explain victim gender effects, and 3) the impact of victim gender at different decision‐making stages in the death penalty case process. We find that both victim gender and race are associated with death sentencing outcomes and that an examination of the joint effects of victim gender and race reveals considerable differences in the likelihood of receiving a death sentence between the most disparate victim race–gender groups. In particular, it seems that black male victim cases are set apart from all others in terms of leniency afforded to defendants. We also show that the effect of victim gender is explained largely by gender differences in the sexual nature of some homicides. An examination of prosecutorial and jury decision making reveals that although victim gender has little impact on prosecutorial decisions, it has a meaningful impact on jury decisions.

Race and the decision making of juries

The relationship between race and jury decision making is a controversial topic that has received increased attention in recent years. While public and media discourse has focused on anecdotal evidence in the form of high‐profile cases, legal researchers have considered a wide range of empirical questions including: To what extent does the race of a defendant affect the verdict tendencies of juries? Is this influence of race comparable for jurors of different races? In what ways does a jury's racial composition affect its verdict and deliberations? The present review examines both experimental and archival investigations of these issues. Though the extant literature is not always consistent and has devoted too little attention to the psychological mechanisms underlying the influence of race, this body of research clearly demonstrates that race has the potential to impact trial outcomes. This is a conclusion with important practical as well as theoretical implications when it comes to ongoing debates regarding jury representativeness, how to optimize jury performance, jury nullification and racial disparities in the administration of capital punishment.