Factors Affecting Jury decision Making: Pre-Trial Publicity PTP Flashcards
Pre-Trial Publicity PTP
What the Flipping Heck is A Jury?
12 People with a minimum age of 18
randomly selected from the electuin ballet
Jurors either take a Religous Oath by reading a card and placing their hand on a Holy Book of their choice
or a Affirm
which they simply read from a card
this is so they tell Only the truth and be honest and stuff
they go to Court and witness the Defenfant and the Prosecuters statments, evidence provided by the court, Laywers qs, witnesses, Cross examen witnesses, the deffences witnesses then the Prosecutirs Witnesses
The Judge then Sums all this up
and they go off and disscuss it
ONLY WITH OTHER JURORS OTHERWISE ITS ILLEGAL
then they come to a verdict on whether the defendant is Guilty or not (or a retrial is organised is not 10/12 agree)
and then the Judge sentences them
and sets out the terms for this
then they can apply to be paid for missing work for jury duty
and go home
Pre-Trial Publicity PTP
What the Flipping Geckos is a
MOCK JURY
due to the study of real jurys being OUTLWAED in the Uk and USa
Psychologists oftern use mock jurys
made of a group of ppts, made to condcider a case and make judgments about it
They take part in a staged trial
in a re enactment of a courtroom
each ppt takes a role
e.g Jury member or Judge
the Jury will hear a summary of both sides of a case (its a mock case)
evidence is shown form both sides
either in a writen scenario ir a video clip
the jury will then discuss the case in a seperate room
this takes 2 hours
researchers may observe this via a One way mirror
Pre-Trial Publicity PTP
Mock Jury Strengths
• Usefull for researching specific senarios, as variables can be manioulated to get a situation that is sim to one that occured irl,
so able to apply the research to real life, and possibly use it to improve real life jurys
• Jurors are selected at random, simular to the random selection from the election ballet in real life
increasing its mundane realism and Generalisability
• Controlled enviroment decreases the effect of extraneous variables such as distracting noises averting attention from evidence
allowing fir cause and effect to be esstablished between factors and Jury decisions
showing high internal validity
Pre-Trial Publicity PTP
Mock Jury WEAKNESSES
• there are no stakes and ppts know they are acting and the trial isnt real, so no emotion in decision making, making it more logical, unlike real life where emotions are mixed in, lowering the Ecological Validity as it is dissimular to real life jury experiences
• the real Trial may take weeks, so a mock jury is too short, lowering its task validity
• NOT the same enviroment as in real life, reducing the ecological validity, as it isnt the same experice as in real life, due to atmospheric differences affecting decision making and thought processes
Pre-Trial Publicity PTP
Shadow Jury
A Shadow Jury is a Group of People Hired by a trial consultant to watch trials
and report their imoressions of the evidence presented
they are asked to make a verdict of Guilty or not guilty based in what they see
their decision is carefully monitered in a quiet room where all deliberations are recorded
attorneys use this feedback in the development of their trial strategies
this group will sit in on a REAL LIFE trial, oftern in the Gallery
IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT THE SHADOW JURY HAS NO INFLUENCE OVER THE TRIAL
Pre-Trial Publicity PTP
Shadow Jury
STRENGTHS
• Takes place with a real case with real +/- evidence, real results and real factors affecting Jury decision making JDM
making it more credible and have higher ecological validity due to taking place in real life so can therefore be applied to it easily
• less stress than the real jury if they know they are the shadow jury (they were hired), this makes it more ethical than real life too
Pre-Trial Publicity PTP
SHADOW JURY
weaknesses
• Shadow jury has no influence over the verdict, if they know this (they do, was hired) then no pressure, unlike a real jury, meaning they may not try as hard to uncover the truth and make sure their decision is accurate, lowering the internal validity
due to the extraneous variable of them not trying to decifer if guilty or not as no consequencs, so demand characteristic, so less link between factors and jury decision
lowering cause and affect
so internal val low
+ unlike real life which has consequences so may have lower eco as disimular to process in real life, so harder to apply results to it
• Lack of control of extraneous variables (e.g. gender, age of person on trial) difficult to establish cause/ effect between factors and jury decision, lowers int val
• May not be a randomly selected jury
therefore not representive of a real jury
so lowers Eco validity as disimular and harder to apply results to irl
and Lowers generalisabilty as Not random sample, so less rep of gen pop
Pre-Trial Publicity PTP
what is it?
Media and other coverage of a case before the trial takes place is known as pretrial publicity
and it is assume that during the case the Jurors will have read or heard about the case if a lot of publicity
which raises the question whether a fair trial can take place under these conditions as the jury may or may not be swayed depending on what they’ve heard or read
What a jury has read and heard about a case may produce Prejudice when it comes to trial
It may be hard to get 12 people who don’t know about the case to be on the jury if the publicity is widespread
PTP can include facts about the crimes such as details of the defendants pass defenses and emotional details such as opinions and personal details
Research suggests that exposure to ptp causes jurors to be more conviction prone
especially when the publicity is designed to elict an emotional response rather than present facts
Pre-Trial Publicity PTP
gagging order
Courts may pose a gagging order on the media
especially in high-profile cases
to avoid problems of ptp from affecting the jury decision and choosing the jury in the first place
the defendant is entitled to be tried fairly by a jury which is why the gagging order is put into place
but of the idea of free speech musr also be considered
However Trial by newspaper is not an option
Pre-Trial Publicity PTP
Example of PTP affecting Jury Decision
Sam Sheppard
Sam Sheppard 1954-66 usa
News reported on the trial which affected the juries outcome
His wife was murdered in july 1954 and Sam was arrested in in july 1954 and the trial began in 1954 by December
The news frequently aired possible charges that he could be given however none of the charges were to do with what he was convicted for
3 weeks before the trial newspapers published names and addresses of the 12 jurors so they got letters and calls about the trial
which took place over two weeks before an election during which the chief prosecutor and the judge were candidates for judgeship
20 reporters were in the trial sat by the bar near the jury which made a lot of noise distracting them as there was free range of movement
and while jurors were told not to look at the bias media some did anyway
this led to Sam being convicted and spending 10 years in prison
till on the 24th of October 1966 when a second trial was done as the first trial was not faithful and a mockery of Justice
the conviction was overturned and he was freed in 1966 after blood splatter evidence suggesting the murderer was left-handed while Sam was right-handed
showing how pretrial publicity can affect during decisions during a trial
Pre-Trial Publicity PTP
link to Reconstructive memory
jurors who were Exposed to publicity from the media may form schemas based on whether the defendant was viewed in a positive or negative light
jurors will mix the information they’ve read in the media such as a newspaper headline with information from the trial this information will then be remembered differently
Confabulation may be used as jurors filling gaps in their knowledge using the schema gain from the media causing the Outlook on the case to become biased
Rationalisation may be used as Jerry may reason about the guilty verdict based on positive or negative schema ?????
Therefore reconstructive memory evaluation points such as allport and postman can be used during AO3 of a pretrial publicity question
reducing Pre-Trial Publicity PTP
Voir dire
+ SDB
Voir Dire is a method used in the United States of America to combat the effects of ptp
Jurors are questioned by a judge or lawyer to determine their suitability for jury service
(may be bias due to media)
this is to reduce the bias in the jury
BUT
it is a self-report data meaning it may be affected by social desirability bias
Making it useless if the jurors simply lie and state they are not biased to get on the trial
and then be biased affecting the validity of the juries decision
Reducing Pre-Trial Publicity PTP
Judicial Instruction
Judicial Instruction
This is when the judge States to the jury to not listen to the media
this is to reduce the bias and Prejudice That ptp may cause the jury to have
leading to an invalid decision made by the jury effected by ptp bias
e.g.:
” any decision you make must be based on evidence from in the trial”
a judge could say that
Reducing Pre-Trial Publicity PTP
Continuance
Continuance
this is when a judge may file for the delay, or change of venue of, the start of the trial
This is to reduce ptps effect on the jury as Press May die down its coverage of the event
Reducing ptp and the BIOS that causes
unless it is an extremely big case then it is likely that the media will return when the trial is back on
or never die down such as in the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp case
Pre-Trial Publicity PTP
Thomas 2010 +
Thomas 2010
looked at the fairness of juries in Nottingham, Winchester and London focusing on the Media reports of the trials
It looked at both high profile cases and shorter ones
and it was found that when jurors recalled the emphasis of Media reports
(short)
66% did not record detail and tended to remember publicity suggesting defendant guilt
In high profile cases 20% of the jurors who did remember me to report about the case found it hard to put reports out to their mind while serving as Jura on the case
Ptp highly effected high-profile cases as it was hard to reduce its influence on the decisions showing how it affects jury decision-making
Making Thomas 2010 good evidence to support the effect of pretrial publicity on jury decision-making
Pre-Trial Publicity PTP
Steblay et al 1999 + ☆
Steblay et al 1999
Carried out meta-analysis to review the effects of ptp on juravertics looked at 44 studies
and found that jurors exposed to negative pretrial publicity were more likely to give a guilty Verdict
than those not exposed to it or exposed to Limited ptp
Meaning that negative ptp affects jury decisions
increasing the chance of guiltly verdict
compared to less ptp or no ptp
meaning that Steblay et al 1999 is evidence suggesting/ supporting ptp effects jury decision making
Pre-Trial Publicity PTP
Honess et al 2003 +
Honess et al 2003
Looked at factual recall and affective emotional recall of ptp and the impact on jury reasoning
They used a simulated fraud trial with 50 mock jurors that were shown a video simulation of trial material
The reasoning of the mock jurors as well as their verdict was recorded
The researchers looked at the effects of recalling the facts and ptp compared with the recall of feelings and thoughts from ptp
they found a highly emotional materials is more likely to be remembered and affect the reasoning against the defendant and increase in the confidence and guilt rather than the recall of facts
This means that emotional material is more like to be remembered and effect the decision against the defendant by increasing the jury’s confidence in the defendants guilt more so than facts themselves
Aka emotional news ptp = affect jury decision making
increased chance of confidence and guilt against the defendants
decreased recall of facts in decision
Showing that Honess 2003 is evidence a supporting the fact that ptp affects jury decision-making
Pre-Trial Publicity PTP
Ogstroff and Vidmar 1994 + ☆
Ogstroff and vidmar 1994
Recruited 121 undergraduates and staff from Simon frazier’s university in British Columbia
the ppts were split into one of four groups
group 1 had no media info and were given a brief account of Mount cashier sexual abuse incidents that were from real life
Group 2 had newspaper articles reporting on the incidents
group 3 had TV reporting on the Instance and
group 4 had both newspapers and TV reporting on the Instance
[Participants were provided with demographic details and completed a preliminary questionnaire regarding their knowledge of the Instance
they were then given stimulai relevant to their condition
finally they completed a questionnaire about the defendant guilt and the effect of Media information]
Both experimental groups were affected emotionally
and both led to more guilty verdicts and longer sentences
participants were also unable to identify themselves as Bias jurors
Shows that all ptp (news +tv) leads to an increase in guilty verdict affecting jury decisions
and they were unaware of being bias
showing how ptp affects real jury
meaning that ogstroff and vidmar 1994 is evidence to support ptp’s effect on jury decision making
Pre-Trial Publicity PTP
mundane realism - ☆
The dependent variable (jury verdict and sentences ect.) when looking into ptp is not often measured in a valid way:
for example asking the participants to give a sentence in years
which is not something a normal jury would do
as it is something that the judge does
this shows a lack of mundane realism in research looking into ptps effect on jury decision making
Pre-Trial Publicity PTP
meta analysis is int valid +
Studies that use meta-analysis such as steblay 1999 are valid
as the use lots of study samples that can be merged due to the large sample size
it reduces the participant effects and anomilies that may be present in the data
which increases the internal validity of its results as anomalies are less likely to affect said results improving the link between cause (ptp) and effect (decisions)
Pre-Trial Publicity PTP
int val experimental methods controls +
some studies in ptp may use experimental methods which involve controls and control groups to be able to establish cause and effect
By isolating independent variables and the measuring dependent variables by controlling extraneous variables
scientific credibility can be given to the findings of these studies
allowing for cause and effects to accurately be established due to the control of these extraneous variables
giving these studies scientific credit ability and internal validity
Pre-Trial Publicity PTP
generalisability - students
Int Val
Eco
☆☆☆☆
Many studies have been found to use students as their participants
which limits a generalizability of the findings as unable to be generalized to over groups in the population
such as employed workers or other groups that are more likely to be part of juries
as students are more likely to be more analytical in their decisions whereas others may be more prone to ptp and be more emotional in their decision making
Meaning that this is a extraneous variable and a participant variable that affects the establishment of calls and effect in the results of any study leading to said study having low internal validity
Therefore also meaning that there is a lack of ecological validity it’s less likely that students would be the most represented group in a jury
Pre-Trial Publicity PTP
eco - ☆
Studies using mock juries lack ecological validity as it is not the same environment as a real life jury meaning the experience is not the same as it is in real life
which may affect decision making and thought processes of the jury meaning that they have low ecological validity
Pre-Trial Publicity PTP
Application
Findings from research into ptp has application
as measures may be put into place to limit Media exposure as much as possible
To reduce ptps effect on jury decision making such as judicial instruction and continuance and voir dire
Pre-Trial Publicity PTP
alt characteristics of deffender affect jury decision making
Int val - too ☆
An alternative view is that factors affecting jury decision making may not just be ptp but also the characteristics of the defendant
as other factors such as gender of the jury and the Defender can affect jury decision-making
meaning that studies may not be able to take into account all influencing variables
which reduces the internal validity due to all of the confounding variables that may be affecting the jury decision making during a study on ptp
Such as the race gender social class accent attractiveness and attitudes of the Defender
Pre-Trial Publicity PTP
eco + real jurors questionaires
In the past real jurys have been asked to complete self-report questionnaires after trial has ended
while there are limitations in self-report data, it provides a rare opportunity to obtain information about decision making in real life
and provide a more reliable account than that of a mock trial
This is because asking real life jurors may provide information about what they did do during a trial whereas mop trials can only record what participants would do in a trial
Meaning these questionnaires have more ecological validity than mock trials as the data being obtained is from real life
