Jury Research Research Articles

Mock jurors’ evaluations of eyewitness identification evidence based on appearance change and associated instructions

ABSTRACT It is common for a perpetrator’s appearance to change between committing the crime and later appearing in an identification procedure. The present study investigated how such appearance change (AC) would be evaluated by potential jurors, as well as tested mock jurors’ evaluations of the appearance change instruction (ACI) utilized by police. Recent research indicates that the ACI harms eyewitness identification accuracy and limits the predictive nature of confidence, but would mock jurors’ estimates of suspect guilt reflect this? In Experiment 1, AC reduced suspect guilt estimates, but the ACI eliminated this effect, indicating that potential jurors may not discount an identification if made after ACI. Experiment 2 introduced a hypothetical eyewitness expert who informs participants about the research that both AC and the ACI harm eyewitness performance. We also compared two types of expert instructions based on recent mock jury research: simple versus reason-based. Both types served to reduce suspect guilt estimates associated with AC. Participants still trusted the ACI even with expert instructions, but not as much as when there was no expert. Lastly, we also manipulated eyewitness confidence level, supporting recent research that manipulations have no effect on suspect guilt estimates when confidence is low (i.e. uncertainty trumps).

Mock juries, real trials: how to solve (some) problems with jury science

AbstractJury science is fraught with difficulty. Since legal and institutional hurdles render it all but impossible to study live criminal jury deliberation, researchers make use of various indirect methods to evaluate jury performance. However, each of these methods is open to methodological criticism and, strikingly, some of the highest‐profile jury research programmes in recent years have reached opposing conclusions. Uncertainty about jury performance is an obstacle for legal reform; ongoing debate about the ‘justice gap’ for complainants of sexual offences has rendered these problems acute. This article proposes a way to advance the debate.

What do we know about ‘rape myth’ research and the claim that there is ‘overwhelming evidence’ that juries are prejudiced in rape trials?

This paper examines the research by Fiona Leverick and demonstrates the methodological flaws in much of the ‘rape myth’ and mock jury research. Other ideas about rape myths and the ‘justice gap’ are explored and seen to be questionable. Furthermore, through a detailed examination of the rape myth acceptance scales, which Leverick describes as being ‘scientifically validated’, we trace the ideological and political-ethical nature of these scales and show a clear one-sidedness in how researchers have used them. Most particularly, we find that there is one-sidedness when it comes to the question of victim empathy. One result of this is that mock jury research has indicated that victim empathetic participants are finding individuals guilty of rape, despite the lack of evidence, and almost nothing has been said about the potential miscarriages of justice being demonstrated in these cases. The argument is thus made that rather than there being overwhelming evidence of rape myth prejudices amongst the public, there appears to be a one-sidedness amongst most rape myth researchers that is encouraging a sentiment of victim empathy that could distort the principles of justice regarding defendants being innocent until proven guilty based on a need to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt. 1

Jury Reform and Live Deliberation Research

Researchers face perennial difficulties in studying live jury deliberation. As a result, the academic community struggles to reach a consensus on key matters of legal reform concerning jury trials. The hurdles faced by empirical jury researchers are often legal or institutional. This note argues that the legal and institutional barriers preventing live deliberation research should be removed and discusses two forms that live deliberation research could take. Keywords: jury research; jury trial; criminal procedure; live deliberation research; rape myths.

Quality-checking the new normal: trial modality in online jury decision-making research.

We sought to examine differences between videotaped and written trial materials on verdicts, perceptions of trial parties, quality check outcomes, perceived salience of racial issues, and emotional states in a trial involving a Black or White defendant. We predicted that verdicts and ratings of trial parties would be similar for those participants viewing a videotaped trial and those reading a written transcript. However, we suspected that emotional states might be heightened for those watching a video and that those reading transcripts would perform better on quality checks regarding trial content (but worse on those involving trial party characteristics, including defendant race). Participants (N = 139 after removing those who did not meet our threshold for data quality) recruited from Amazon's Mechanical Turk were randomly assigned to watch a video or read a transcript of a trial involving an alleged murder of a police officer. They completed a questionnaire probing their verdict, perceptions of trial parties, perceived salience of racial issues, and emotional state, and responded to a series of quality checks. Participants in the videotape condition performed significantly worse on quality checks than did those in the transcript condition. There were no significant differences between modalities in terms of verdict or perceived salience of racial issues. Some other differences emerged between conditions, however, with more positive perceptions of the pathologist and police officer in the transcript condition, and more negative emotion elicited by the trial involving a White defendant in the videotape condition only. There were no meaningful differences between videotaped and written trial materials in terms of outcome (verdict), but the presence of some trial party rating and emotional state differences stemming from modality epitomizes the internal/ecological validity trade-off in jury research. Our quality check results indicate that written transcripts may work better for obtaining valid data online. Regardless of modality, researchers must be diligent in crafting quality checks to ensure that participants are attending to the stimulus materials, particularly as more research shifts online.

The curious case of the jury-shaped hole: A plea for real jury research

Criminal juries make decisions of great importance. A key criticism of juries is that they are unreliable in a multitude of ways, from exhibiting racial or gendered biases, to misunderstanding their role, to engaging in impropriety such as internet research. Recently, some have even claimed that the use of juries creates injustice on a large scale, as a cause of low conviction rates for sexual criminality. Unfortunately, empirical research into jury deliberation is undermined by the fact that researchers are unable to study live juries. The indirect sources of evidence used by researchers suffer from various problems, the most important of which is dubious levels of ecological validity. Real jury research—studying live jury deliberation—is controversial. However, as I argue, the objections to it are unconvincing. There is in fact a moral imperative to facilitate real jury research.

Gentlewomen of the Jury

This Article undertakes a contemporary assessment of the role of women on the jury. In 1946, at a time when few women served on U.S. juries, the all-male Supreme Court opined in Ballard v. United States: “The truth is that the two sexes are not fungible; a community made up exclusively of one is different from a community composed of both; the subtle interplay of influence of one on the other is among the imponderables.” Three-quarters of a century later, women’s legal and social status has changed dramatically, with increased participation in the labor force, expanded leadership roles, and the removal of legal and other barriers to their civic engagement, including jury service. Theoretical developments and research have produced new insights about how genderconforming individuals enact their gender roles. We combine these insights with a substantial body of jury research that has examined the effects of jurors’ gender on their decision-making processes and verdict preferences in criminal and civil cases. We also consider how nonbinary and gender-nonconforming individuals might bring distinctive perspectives and experiences to the jury. After a review of the historical record, describing shifts over time in women’s jury participation in the face of legal and societal barriers, we summarize evidence from decision-making research, gender scholarship, and jury studies to examine whether women bring a different voice to jury service. Our review, which demonstrates substantial commonalities as well as significant areas of divergence in jurors’ attitudes and verdicts as a function of their gender, altogether underscores the importance of full and equitable participation on the jury.

What are the greatest health challenges facing people who are incarcerated? We need to ask them

What are the greatest health challenges facing people who are incarcerated? We need to ask them

The Contemporary American Jury

The contemporary American jury is more inclusive than ever before, although multiple obstacles continue to make racial and ethnic representation a work in progress. Drastic contraction has also occurred: The rate of jury trials is at an all-time low, dampening the signal that jury verdicts provide to the justice system, reducing the opportunity for jury service, and potentially threatening the legitimacy of judgments. At the same time, new areas of jury research have been producing important explanations for how the jury goes about reaching its verdict in response to challenging questions, like how to assess damages. Yet the persistent focus on individual juror judgments as opposed to decision making by the jury as a group leaves unanswered important questions about how jury performance is influenced by a primary distinctive feature of the jury: the deliberation process.

When a corporation rapes: perceptions of rape in civil court for corporate defendants

ABSTRACTIn recent years, the coupling of poor outcomes for rape victims in criminal court and the widening scope of legal responsibility for sexual assault has prompted plaintiffs to file civil suits for rape against corporations. Unfortunately, we know little about juror perception of civilly litigated rape against corporate defendants and most jury research involving corporate defendants concerns non-sexual injury cases (e.g. premises liability, automobile accidents). With the increasing number of corporations being sued civilly for rape, we need to understand how civil juries perceive these cases. The present study investigated mock jurors’ perceptions of a fictional civil rape trial against a hotel. Community members (N = 155) read one of three trial summaries: Civil rape trial against the alleged perpetrator, civil rape trial against a hotel, or criminal rape trial. Results indicate females have higher pro-plaintiff judgments than males in civil court, perceptions of greed typically associated with civil litigation apply to rape, and favorable plaintiff decisions are most likely against a corporate defendant. Also, mental models suggest mock jurors conceptualize criminal and civil rape cases against an individual similarly. We discuss our results in terms of psychological, legal and practical expectations when suing for rape.

Trial by Jury: Story of a Legal Transplant

IntroductionThe word conjures up diverse images, whether it is a team of doctors crowded around an operating table during an organ transplant, or rows of small tomato plants recently inserted into newly tilled earth. For comparative law scholars, term signals something completely different. Decades ago, Scotsman Alan Watson (1974) generated concept of a legal transplant, which continues to be a major focus of comparative law scholarship (Graziadei 2006; Riles 2006). According to Watson, a legal is common phenomenon of one country adopting, in whole or in part, another country's established law, legal procedure, legal institution, or legal system. Some see this as single most important phenomenon in development of law, for example: the growth of law is principally to be explained by transplantation of legal rules (Ewald 1995:489). The notion has been employed to explain dissemination of legal procedures (Brake and Katzenstein 2013), plea bargaining (Langer 2004), and a host of other legal phenomena across globe. This essay employs concept of legal as a vehicle to describe global spread of trial by jury.The concept of a legal has been ubiquitous in field of comparative law, but also contentious. Scholars differ in their views of extent to which culture and society affect transfer of laws and legal procedures (for a review of debate, see Goldbach 2015:92-95). Even transplant terminology is contested (Graziadei 2006:443). Some scholars of comparative law maintain that word is at very least misleading because it suggests that an organ, plant, or legal procedure might function exactly same in its new body, garden, or country as it did in previous one (Legrand 1997; Merryman et al. 1994). From this perspective, idea of legal more correctly captures ways in which legal systems import, borrow, or export their laws, procedures, constitutions, or institutions to other legal systems (Berkowitz, Pistor, and Richard 2003; Langer 2004). These scholars believe translation is a more apt metaphor because it allows one to distinguish between two countries' laws that may be textually identical but function in completely different manners.I am an outsider to field of comparative law. I am trained as a social psychologist, running experiments, analyzing surveys, and interviewing participants. But like many others in interdisciplinary Law and Society Association, my research focus on juries and lay participation has lured me into fields well beyond my initial training, in this case, domain of comparative law. From my outsider's perspective, I find concepts of transplanting and translating to be thought-provoking metaphors for movement of jury in global legal systems: its introduction and its flourishing, as well as its abolition and its decline, around world.My essay about jury as a legal presumes importance of society on legal movements, and has two emphases. First, I try to understand societal, political, and legal circumstances and actions that have led to adoption, expansion, and decline of lay citizen participation in law (Hans 2007, 2008; Thaman 2007; Thomas 2016). Trial by jury is a frequent topic in popular culture. It is regularly featured in movies, television shows, books, and other popular media, particularly in United States (Abramson 2000:498-500; Hans 2013:392-94; Marder 2007; Papke et al. 2007). Further, research on how jury functions as a decision making body is voluminous (Baldwin and McConville 1979; Devine 2012; Diamond and Rose 2005; Goodman-Delahunty and Tait 2006; Kovera 2017; Vidmar and Hans 2007). Much jury research is focused on how a jury or another lay fact-finding body functions within a single country at a particular point in time. There is a relatively modest amount of work that engages generally in historical and international comparisons and that specifically contrasts different forms of lay participation (Hans et al. …

Mock juror sampling issues in jury simulation research: A meta-analysis.

The advantages and disadvantages of jury simulation research have often been debated in the literature. Critics chiefly argue that jury simulations lack verisimilitude, particularly through their use of student mock jurors, and that this limits the generalizabilty of the findings. In the present article, the question of sample differences (student v. nonstudent) in jury research was meta-analyzed for 6 dependent variables: 3 criminal (guilty verdicts, culpability, and sentencing) and 3 civil (liability verdicts, continuous liability, and damages). In total, 53 studies (N = 17,716) were included in the analysis (40 criminal and 13 civil). The results revealed that guilty verdicts, culpability ratings, and damage awards did not vary with sample. Furthermore, the variables that revealed significant or marginally significant differences, sentencing and liability judgments, had small or contradictory effect sizes (e.g., effects on dichotomous and continuous liability judgments were in opposite directions). In addition, with the exception of trial presentation medium, moderator effects were small and inconsistent. These results may help to alleviate concerns regarding the use of student samples in jury simulation research. (PsycINFO Database Record

Beyond the legal barriers: Institutional gatekeeping and real jury research

Social science research must displace myth, anecdote, and judicial hearsay in directing reform of the jury system. Drawing on the experiences of researchers from commonwealth countries, we explore why it has been so hard to undertake research on real juries. We also identify how the legal and institutional “barriers” might be lifted to facilitate an evidence-based approach to jury reform.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Professional Perceptions of Jury Decision‐making Research Practices

This article reports results from a survey measuring the acceptability of jury decision‐making research practices. Historically, there has been wide variability in the methodology used to conduct experimental jury decision‐making research. Samples can be drawn from different populations, the format of stimulus materials can vary, key elements of a trial, including jury instructions and deliberation, can be omitted, and different types of dependent measures can be used to assess decisions. The acceptability of evaluating different approaches for conducting research ultimately becomes a subjective process. The present study sought to identify professional standards regarding acceptable and unacceptable research practices by assessing the perceptions of individuals involved in conducting, reviewing, and publishing jury research. Overall, respondents (N = 74) placed greater weight on internal rather than ecological validity, and rated the utilization of theory to guide research as the most important factor. The inclusion of jury instructions was rated as the most important specific trial element, while deliberations received the least support. The findings present a guide for researchers designing materials, provide a framework for objective evaluation of manuscripts based on professional standards, offer guidance to courts seeking to determine the general acceptance of jury decision‐making research methodologies, and create a foundation for the development of more standardized practices in the field. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Canadian Jury Research: The Contributions of Anthony N. Doob

In the 1970s, when the Law Reform Commission of Canada undertook a comprehensive project on the Canadian jury, there was a dearth of empirical research on the topic. Anthony N. Doob's research studies on juror decision making, among the first to be conducted on questions of relevance to the Canadian jury, were innovative, legally astute, and valuable sources of information. They have served as important models for subsequent jury research in Canada.

What Jurors Want: Motivating Juror Cognition to Increase Comprehension & Improve Decisionmaking

What do jurors want to know? Jury research tells us that jurors want to understand the information they hear in a trial so they can reach the correct decision. But like all people, jurors who are asked to analyze information in a trial — even jurors who consciously want to reach a fair and accurate verdict — are unconsciously influenced by their internal goals and motivations. Some of these motives are specific to individual jurors; for instance, a potential juror with a financial interest in a case would be excluded from the jury pool. But other motivations, like the motive to understand the law and to reach an accurate verdict, are core social motives that influence the cognition of all jurors. Although those motives may be less obvious than those of the juror with a financial stake in the case, they still have a profound influence on how jurors learn the law and interpret evidence, and we can use them to better motivate jurors to efficiently learn the law and to think carefully about how the law will apply to the facts they will see in a trial. A significant body of legal literature has examined jurors’ use and understanding of the substantive law they receive in jury instructions, and many scholars have recommended methods to improve juror comprehension of instructions. This Article is the first law journal article to take that analysis a step further and consider all of the major scientific studies that examine motivated cognition and apply them to jury decisionmaking. Because much of juror cognition is motivated, we can harness the power of this motivated cognition to further increase juror comprehension of the law and improve juror decisionmaking.

Simulated jury decision making in online focus groups

PurposeA significant issue in jury research has been the use of individual jurors to analyse jury decision‐making. This paper aimed to examine the applicability of computer‐mediated communication to a mock jury deliberation study.Design/methodology/approachGroups of three to five Australian residents anonymously attended a secure chat room and participated in a semi‐structured discussion about a simulated child sexual assault scenario. Deliberation transcripts were analysed thematically using NVivo. A hermeneutic framework was used to analyse the deliberation transcripts.FindingsFive interrelated themes were revealed, each reflecting the tools online juries used to communicate, create meaning, and arrive at a verdict. Electronic jury deliberation promoted an understanding of how people make sense of child sexual assault cases in Australia today.Originality/valueThis study advanced the understanding of online decision making in a child sexual assault scenario. It demonstrated that knowledge of how juries deliberate and create meaning could improve our understanding of how verdicts are achieved. Electronic mock juries are a valuable adjunct to traditional jury deliberation studies because they are cost effective, time efficient, and offer wider recruitment opportunities.

Blame Attribution in Court: Conceptualization and Measurement of Perpetrator Blame

Drawing on legal and psychological theory of blame, the present study evaluates psychometric properties of the Perceptions of Blame Scale (PBS; Rayburn, Mendoza, & Davison, 2003) across crimes of varying severity (i.e., misdemeanor assault, felony assault, and murder) and motivation (gay hate crime victim versus heterosexual victim perceived as gay). Results revealed support for a single-factor model of perceptions of perpetrator blame in a panel of jury-eligible community members. Perceptions of blame in this study moderated the impact of crime motivation on the sentencing decision. Results are discussed with regard to legal and psychological perspectives of blame in a jury research paradigm.

Canadian Mock Juror Attitudes and Decisions in Domestic Violence Cases Involving Asian and White Interracial and Intraracial Couples

This study manipulated the race of the defendant and the victim (White/White, White/Asian, Asian/Asian, and Asian/White) in a domestic violence case to examine the potential prejudicial impact of race on juror decision making. A total of 181 undergraduate students read a trial transcript involving an allegation of spousal abuse in which defendant and victim race were manipulated using photographs. They then provided a verdict and confidence rating, a sentence, and responsibility attributions, and completed various scales measuring attitudes toward wife abuse and women. Findings revealed that female jurors were harsher toward the defendant than were male jurors. When controlling for attitudes toward Asians, jurors found the defendant guilty more often in cases involving interracial couples, as compared to same-race couples. Path analyses revealed various factors and attitudes involved in domestic violence trial outcomes. Findings contribute to the scarce literature on legal proceedings involving Asians, particularly in domestic violence cases. Outcomes also provide a model for relevant factors and characteristics of jurors in domestic violence cases. Roadblocks inherent in jury research are also discussed.

Friendship and Conformity in Group Opinions: Juror Verdict Change in Mock Juries

Social psychological research on group processes has consistently shown that group members adjust their views to conform to dominant and/or socially desirable stances. Studies are less clear, though, on how friendships within groups impact this tendency. Some studies suggest greater group cohesion leads to more conformity; other studies suggest friendship lessens the pressure to agree on certain issues. In this study, we use mock juries to test the impact of varying levels of friendship on jurors’ propensities to change their verdicts to the dominant position (in this case acquittal, or a “not guilty” verdict). Our findings show that distant friendships among jurors increase the odds of conforming to acquittal; but close friendships decrease the odds of conformity. We discuss the implications of our findings for understanding group processes and conformity as well as for jury research.