CHAP 7 (Jury Selection / Jury Decision Making) Flashcards
Potential Sources of Juror Bias
Juror Characteristics
Extra-legal factors (ptp, etc)
(CLASS): Juror characteristics
“truths” about good/bad jurors
Authoritarianism
Religious/moral beliefs
Prejudice
Pretrial information / Pre Trial Publicity
LITTLE EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE (Prof: Based on evidence, first 12 people you grab are likely as good as any)
Provincial and territorial
legislation that outlines the
eligibility criteria for jury
service and how prospective
jurors must be selected
Juries Act
In Canada, criminal trials have _______ juries
12-person juries
A court order that states a time
and place to go for jury duty
Jury summons
History of the Jury System
Old View vs Current View
- Ancient athens (anyone who wanted to could be on the journey, and anyone may be able to be the judge or lawyers involved)
- Wasn’t uncommon for a 200 person jury to happen, given two tokens for guilt or innocent, and toss it into a urn on the way out
- Majority Rules
500 Years Later
- Allowed to be on the jury if you knew the person (who could judge you better than someone who actually knows you)
North America Today
- Mostly morphed from the U.K
- Cannot know the person or have any connection / knowledge
**- Roughly 12 individuals **
In Court is it better than judge alone? Or Jury?
Kalven & Zeisel (1966)
- verdicts of similar cases that had verdicts, gave them to jurors and judges to see if they would agree the same
- 80% of the time, judge and juries agreed!
- In other 20% differences, jurors were 5 times more likely to be lenient than judge)
US Statistics = Only ______ of cases decided by jury
3-6%
- Most cases solved by plea bargaining, larger the discrepancy, likely weaker the case they have against you
In Canada
Summary Offences (________)
- Tried by _________
Indictable Offences
________ for less serious offences are heard
** Hybrid**
__________________
Summary Offences
(< 6 Months, < 2000$)
Judge Alone (ie; prostitution)
Indictable Offences
Judge Alone for less serious offences are heard
Otherwise judge or jury (ie, treason, murder, piracy) (YOU GET CHOICE)
- SERIOUS OFFENCES (NO CHOICE, JURY unless crown specifically wants to do JUDGE
Hybrid
Crown / Crown attorney decides whether summary or indictable
The Supreme Court of Canada indicated two fundamental characteristics of juries
(R. v. Sherratt, 1991):
- A composition that represents the community in which the crime occurred. This is known as representativeness.
- A lack of bias on the part of jurors, known as impartiality
Impartiality? What does it mean to say someone is “impartial”?
Blank Slate? (Tabula rasa) Impossible, Everyone is unique?
- Most would say impartiality means to not have a “fixed opinion”
Are jurors generally impartial?
(TEXTBOOK)
The juror characteristic of impartiality centres on three issues:
1. For a juror to be impartial, they must set aside any pre-existing biases, prejudices, or attitudes and judge the case based solely on the admissible evidence.
- To be impartial also means that the juror must ignore any information that is not part of the admissible evidence (ie; media attention)
- It is also important that the juror have no connection to the defendant so that the juror does not view the evidence subjectively or unduly influence the other jurors
(Prof note: Be aware of your biases, they are attitudes to have in hand, not to be avoided)
Types and amount of juror challenges
(1) peremptory challenge
(2) A challenge for cause
12 Peremptory challenges per side (either side can eliminate you without any reasoning whatsoever)
- 20 in a murder case
- Bill C-75 removes peremptory challenges
Under Bill C-75, a lawyer must establish ____________ in the population (juror) to form a challenge for cause
After, this challenge for cause challenge is warranted and has final approval of any questions to be put to the jury _______________
a reasonable inference of potential bias
only by the judge
Legal Mechanism in place to challenge jurors as to whether they would be impartial with respect to a particular issues
A Challenge for Cause
How can we screen for potential biases in jurors?
&
Differences in the US vs Canada? The Biggest one being ___________
Voir Dire = To “speak the truth”
-“The process of questioning potential jurors to determine if they can serve fairly and impartially in a trial”
- In the U.S, sometimes an extremely detailed “100” question survey about tons of your personal traits, characteristics and experiences
Breach of Privacy? Not very effective
- In Canada, all they know is your name and occupation
Death Qualification - U.S
- Jurors have been death qualified, which means they have to be “for” the death penalty
- Challenges those opposed to the death penalty, they cannot be on a jury for someone facing the death penalty as they may be biased to not want to kill said person.
- Excludes women, blacks, as they tend to be against the death penalty
- People that are death qualified have higher levels of authoritarianism
More punitive, more likely to find guilt.
Does the death penalty deter crime?
- Does not tend to reduce crime
-Must think about penalty before hand
-Some studies indicate crime goes up in States with this penalty
- More Strain on court system, more appeals, longer trials
Threats to Impartiality – (TEXTBOOK) Key Notes
Media Influence on Jurors
- Pretrial publicity often negative, affecting trial fairness.
- Verdicts may rely on emotions/media bias over evidence.
Pretrial Publicity Studies - Steblay et al. (1999):
- Negative pretrial publicity → modest increase in guilty verdicts.
Ruva, Dickman, & Mayes (2014):
- Negative publicity → more guilty verdicts, higher guilt ratings.
Case Study- Staggs & Landreville (2017):
James Holmes case: Negative publicity → harsher punishment judgments.
Deliberation and Publicity
Ruva & Guenther (2015):
Negative publicity → guilty verdicts, memory errors.
- Jurors discussed publicity despite instructions not to.
- Deliberations failed to reduce bias.
Positive Publicity
Ruva & McEvoy (2008):
- Positive publicity → fewer guilty verdicts; jurors biased positively.
- Negative publicity → more guilty verdicts; jurors biased negatively.
General Publicity Impact
Ruva, Guenther, & Yarbrough (2011):
Any publicity (positive/negative) influences verdicts and juror decisions.
R. v. Parks (1993), 24 C.R.(4th) 81
&
The Supreme Court of Canada reiterates this precedent in R. V. Williams (1998)
(In class case regarding premptory / challenge for cause disqualifying jurors)
R.v.Parks
“Ontario courts took judicial notice that “there is a realistic probability that a juror will be influenced in the performance of his or her judicial duty on the basis of racial bias”
R.v.Williams
- Robbery
- Claimed widespread racism against aboriginal people in Canadian Society
- “I hope that the 12 people that try me are not Indian Haters”
-Judge allowed questioning, first trial, 43 questioned, 12 dismissed for bias risk
- Ended in mistrial due to publicity
- At second trial, no challenge was allowed, Supreme court stepped in and the second appeal upheld
Swearing In the Triers
Select first 2 Triers of Fact
- “Do you swear that the evidence shall be the truth, nothing but the truth”
- “Do you swear that you will well and truly try whether one of the jurors stands acceptable or unacceptable to try the accused, and a true verdict give according to the evidence”
- Call first potential juror
- “Do you swear…”
- First certified Juror when allowed by triers of fact, takes place of one trier of fact, 2nd and 3rd pick next, and so on
The Challenge for Cause Question (R. v. Parks)
“ Would your ability to judge evidence in case without bias, prejudice, or partiality be affected in any way by the fact that the accused it ____”
Trier Unacceptable
- If triers find juror ________ or if either lawyer uses a peremptory challenge, the juror is __________________
- This challenged juror is free to be called for _________ later on
unacceptable
excused back to the jury office
another jury pool
Overall is voir dire, challenges, personality trait screenings, etc, a good system for weeding out bias? (racial, etc)
May help, but certainly no guarantee of impartiality
Free Press or Fair Trial?
In Canada, case law changed with ____________,
This is when ____________
Dagenais (1994)
- Catholic priests charged with child molestation, at same time when boys of st. vincent was airing (fictional story of same topic)
- Defence said it was unfair bias
Dagenais Rules are
- Claim has to be “real & substantial” risk to rights of defendant, for press to be limited, doesn’t happen often
(Milgaard Case)
Do we need to ban potentially biasing information?
o Problem with much of the research:
Freedman & Burke, 1996 (Science Centre)
(TEXTBOOK:It seems that any pretrial publicity, whether positive or negative, can influence juror decision making)
- hard to say for absolute sure
Prof Burke: did research too see if publicity of karla homolka case altered opinions when Burke told participant “new” false news about the case.
- Showed that peoples opinions are only minorly swayed by media coverage both good and bad, likely doseny solely affect decision / answer about guilt or innocence
- Argue that there is less affect of pretrial publicity than imagined, but semi-contrary to other research that says views and views of punishment are????
Other Remedies Keeping Potential Juror Impartial (aside from voir dire screening, oaths of truth, challenges)
Change of venue
Continuance/delay
Sequestering
Judicial Instructions
Moving a trial to a community other than the one in which
the crime occurred
Change of venue
Delaying the trial until sometime in the future
Adjournment (Continuance/Delay)
Expensive, “lockdown” for Jurors, no phone calls, all media out in aims of isolating jurors from bias or outside influence
- difficult to organize effectively
Sequestering
legal guidelines that a judge provides to a jury in a court of law. They are also known as charges or directions (ie“avoid the media”)
Judicial Instructions
Occurs when a jury ignores
the law and the evidence,
rendering a verdict based
on some other criteria
class: They may ignore a ‘bad’ or ‘immoral’ law
Jury nullification
The theory that when jurors
are guided by their emotions
and personal biases rather
than by the law, chaos in
judgments results
Chaos theory
When jury members discuss
the evidence privately among
themselves to reach a verdict
that is then provided to the
court
Deliberation
How Do We Study Juror and Jury
Behaviour Reflectively?
- Post-trial Interviews
- Archives
-Simulation - Field Studies
When individuals tend to
become more extreme in their
initial position following a
group discussion
Polarization
When jurors move toward
greater leniency during
deliberations
Leniency bias
A jury that cannot reach
a unanimous verdict
Hung jury
When evidence is strong,
similarity between defendant
and jury leads to punitiveness
Black sheep effect
The two personality traits that have been commonly measured in connection to jurors are ________ & ____________
1.authoritarianism
2. dogmatism
more likely to align themselves with the prosecution and, thus, render more guilty
(Gunnell and Ceci (2010) TEXTBOOK): Rational processing (R-processors) occurs through an analysis of fact and logic. Experiential processing (E-processors) occurs through emotion and personal experience. people are likely to fall into one category (ie; someone with a high E-processing rating would is likelier to find an attrative person not guilty than an unattractive one)
- Based on responses to a questionnaire, participants were given a score that would classify them as more of an E-processor or an R-processor.
