Factors Effectibng Jury Decision Making A01 Flashcards
Pre trial publicity definition
Pre trial publicity is information in the media about a crime before the trial begins. It might include facts about the crime and suspect including past offences (factual PTP) as well as comments and opinions (emotive PTP) EJ interview interviews with neighbour teacher and it can be positive or negative
Pre-trial publicity may be increased if the individual is of high status famous had media exposure such as in newspapers, TV and social media
A01 impact of PTP
Knowing about past criminal records can affect how the jury attributes guilt
However
more specific information - negative - information will have a larger effecton them more than general PTP
the judges request to ignore may PTP is usually ignored, jurors a find it hard to ignore PTP create more memory source errors which will impact what they believe is from the trial and what is from the PTP
Prior knowledge does influence the jury compared to not knowing any information about the case before handespecially so in more violent crime such as murder and sexual abuse
Media reporting is often sensationalised which favours the victim. TV exposure and TV plus printed media biased potential jurors significantly more than exposure to print media alone
Emotional material- negative= more guilty verdicts- is more influential there fore the context if material matters as this is harder to remove making it more likely that the defendant is seen as guilty.
The type of PTP matters, pre defence vs negative defense both have an effect, when pre defence is used jurors tend to need more evidencein order to see if guilty is the right judgement. More negative= more guilty verdicts
PTP supporting evidence
linz and penrod,using newspaper cuttings with a mock jury found that pre-trial publicity including prior convictions and ‘sensational’ reporting impacted on your decision. There is a legal question of whether Joyce should know about prior convictions of defendant
barton et al one group of participants newspaper cuttings about a defendants criminal record compared with another group which didn’t. Both groups listen to the tapes of the trial and were asked to give verdicts. 78% of the participants that read about the defendants coming compared to only 55% of participants not exposed to his criminal record.
therefore the judges instructions to not ignore PTP has little effect.
ruva et al 2007-investigated PTP using 558 students from the University of South Florida. Juries were either given negative PTP about the defendant or unrelated current articles. The mock trial involved a real videotaped criminal trial.
Participants were given a memory test about whether information appeared in the trial or the PTP. It was found that jurors in the pTP conditions were significantly more likely to attribute information in the PTP to the trial, and vote guilty with longer sentences. trial and identified more info as coming from the trial correctly.
Mock jury- A03 how good is evidence
Strength-The mock case is set up in a controlled environment, therefore, having internal validity as cause and effect can be established between factors and jury-decision making- can isolate/ control variables e.g. emotive statement, factual statement (PTP) or gender, race etc - (characteristics)
Weakness- The mock jurors know that the case is not real, therefore they may not act the same as the would on a real case. There are no stakes/ consequences for them to be invested with the pressure of a real- life conviction. Therefore, this lowers validity.
Weakness-by operationalising variables people may guess aim e.g. to do with race, be invested with the pressure or fear the conviction. Therefore, lowers validity
Weakness-by operationalising variables people may guess aim e.g. to do with race, leading to social desirability.
Weakness- attractiveness is subjective not everyone will find the same personal attractive as well as race
weakness: students
weakness: lacks mundane realism in real court case judge attribute sentence length notjury.
Meta analysis A03
Strength- highly reliable, multiple studies, secondary data,-
wider samples of ppts ,reducing anomalies, giving more credibility conclusions (high gen)
OR highly valid multiple studies, secondary data, more depth and detail, giving more credibility.
Weakness- low validity, used secondary data from multiple studies May be unreliable as the researcher may not know how the data was collected and if it followed a standardised procedure or how the variables were operationalised decreasing credibility of conclusions.
Contrasting theory
For PTP = characteristics of the defendant
For characteristics of defendant= PTP
Other factor-how evidence is presented
story order: lawyers present evidence in the sequence of events occurred
Witness order, lawyers present witness in the order they think will influence the jury most.
Pennington and hastie- suggest that jurors are no different and will construct a story in order to make sense of the evidence presented to them. Jurors will return a verdict that has best fit their story. Lawyers are aware of this and realise that the type of story, in the study they found that the story order is more persuasive than the witness order, it’s easier for jurors to construct a story from events told in the correct order that from events told in the wrong order to try and increase impact.
Application PTP
Advice to jury to limit access/exposure to media as soon as know as there part of the jury-judge enforce this strictly- more enforcing
Although hard to enforce.
A01 for characteristics of the defendant - appearance/ attractiveness
Definition -The more attractive you are the less likely you are to be found guilty.
This is due to a from of cognitive bias where we attribute positive characteristics to more attractive people
Stereotype-“ what is beautiful is Good”
Tendency of people to rate attractive individual a more favourably- in a trial we may assume attractive people not cape able of crime as it does r first their physical appearance
Halo effect
If you use your looks for the crime you’re more likely to be found guilty
A01 for characteristics of the defendant - gender
Stereotypes of make and demand traits
Jurors see female defendant as more believable
Males committing high risk crimes and having high reoffending rates
Female defendants are often mothers with responsibility for child get makes them seem unlikely to commit serious crime and be treated leniently by court
But if you are seen to violate your gender role this could influence a guilty verdict
A01 for characteristics of the defendant- race
Higher proportion of ethnic minorities in prison 15% compared to 8% of the UK general population
Long held stereo view black men are more likely to commit crime -prejudice and discrimination
Leading them to receive harsher sentences than a white defendant for the same crime Similarly of course your norms, maybe different race but if similar culture may reduce effects
A03 for characteristics of the defendant- attractiveness
Dion et al- found that people were more positive towards attractive people.
A group of people were asked to look at photographs of people and write their personality and charachterustics.
Their results showed they were more favourable towards attractive people supporting the what is beautiful is also good stereotype.
(although this piece of research may not be completely accurate because it is an ecologically valid. If you’re showing a picture of someone then your reaction to help out the corners be completely different to what it would be like in a real jury situation)
A03 for characteristics of the defendant gender
cruse and Leigh participants to act as a jury in a mock trial where a relationship ended because of physical assault. One group of participants was told that Jack Bailey was accused of no I think Lucy Hill. 43% of the jurors found him guilty. The other group was told that Lucy Hal was accused of nothing Jack Bailey 69% of Ger. This may be because she was violating her gender as women do not physically assault people traditionally, as she was more likely to be viewed in negative terms therefore more likely to be guilty
OR
McCoy and gray 2007-suggest that jurors see female defendants as more believable than male defendants. Based on those committing high-risk carbs in having high reoffending rates. Female defendants of them with us which makes him seem unlikely to commit a serious crime and be treated defendants as more believable than male defendants. Based on those committing high-risk carbs in having high reoffending rates. Female defendants of them with us which makes him seem unlikely to commit a serious crime and to be treated leniently by the court
weakness: although generalisation is a problem in regards to imitating real court cases. Investigations into gender bias in the courtroom often use the most severe crimes and a standard population of students. A wider population sample affect the current gender bias.
A03 for characteristics of the defendant- race
duncan 1976 showed white participants a film without sound of men talking intensely and then one of the men shift other. When it was a black man pushing a white man and 75% of participants perceive to the push as a violent behaviour but for the other way round only 17% saw it as violent behaviour
The ethnic cities such as Asian or European are not considered and say results cannot be generalised when they have not been tested. It also does not test whether this could affect the juries decision as there is no evidence that participants deciding as a group, therefore setting may have affected their judgment
Pre trial publicity definition
Information in the media about a case and a defendant can argue that what a jury has read and heard about their case may cause prejudice towards the case when it comes to the trial
It can overall prevent a fair trial as its hard to get 2 ppl who don’t know about the case to be on the jury
A01- effects of PTP
Courts may impose gagging orders on the media in high profile case to avoid problems
Defendant has the right to be judged fairly
Free speech must also be considered
Trial by newspaper should be avoided
Misinformation effect (negative)
How info after an event has been witnessed and can be incorporated into the memory
Can be false memory (shopping mall incident)
PTP can also have an effect of giving misinformation to a juror which might impact the jurors decision making
A03- effects of media reporting (negative)
Thomas- jurors on high-profile cases were 70% more likely to recall media coverage than those on standard cases 11%
Most jurors saw reports during the trial rather than beforehand, which is not pre-trial publicity
However, a third of jus 35% heard pre-trial publicity
Jurors in trials with a lot of publicity remember TV reports and reports in national newspapers whereas those in standard cases remembered reports in local newspapers
66% did not record detail they tended to remember publicity suggesting defendant guilt
In high profile cases 20% of the jewellers who did remember media reports about the case found it hard to put reports out of their mind while serving as a drawer in the case
Drawers also looked at cases on the Internet during the trial which they’re not supposed to do this suggests that pre-trial publicity can negatively affect the defendant
A03- effects of PTP on juror verdicts
(Use when discussing meta analysis)
STEBLAY – carried out a meta analysis to review the effects of PTP
44 tests were looked at and findings were often in support of the idea that participants exposed to negative PTP are more likely to find the defendant guilty then if there’s less or no negative PTP
Negative PTP leads to more guilty verdict than Juers who have more neutral PTP
Of the 44 studies 23 support the high prothesis and 25 no significant difference
However, one study found the opposite that negative PTP significantly lead to few guilty verdict
Overall finding suggests that there’s no PTP effect
Strength – meta analysis has large sample so underlying patterns can be found
Decrease effect of extraneous variables on the results of singular studies
A03– PTP and juror memory and decision-making
Ruva and McEvoy – experiment looking at the effects of being exposed to PTP
Mock Juror read news article with negative PTP positive PTP and unrelated articles
Five days later, PPTS watched video murder trial and made decisions about guilt
Half gave verdict and had memory test straight after video and other half did the same two days after watching video
Neither verdict or guilt writing differed between immediate versus after two days
Finding suggest that being exposed to PTP affected the verdict and perception of credibility of defendant
PTP was also seen as part of trial evidence (misinformation affect and false memory can predict)
Both negative and positive PTP affected during decision-making
A03– factual and effective recall (emotional)
MOCK JURY (USE TO EVALUATE HONESS)
Honess- simulated fraud trial
Real life PTP in high-profile, broad case and reasoning about trial evidence and verdict
50 Montrose were showing a video simulation of the trial material and the reasoning of the drawers as well as their verdict were recorded
Effects of recalling facts PTP versus recall of feelings and thoughts from PTP
Found recall of feelings and evaluation of thoughts about the trial that affected reasoning against the defendant and confidence in guilt rather than recall of the facts
Emotions and evaluations from PTP seem to affect decision-making
ETHICS
As this was a real case, the defendants a reality so there’s a need to consider ethics of using defendants whose names are known
Strength – using a real case has its advantage because PTP and participants memory of it a real
Weakness – ethical principles as real names were used
A03- mock juror decision making
Slant toward prosecution or defence
Daftary-kapur - use a shadow jewellery using a real trial to improve ecological validity of mock your studies
115 mock jurors (community members eligible for jury service)
Exposed to PTP naturally in the place where the case happened
156 mocks exposed to PTP experimentally
Found drawers were influenced by both the slant of PTP and the quantity
Exposed to pro prosecution gave a verdict in that direction
Jurors exposed to pro defence gave verdict for defence
More PTP equals more bias
No significant difference between those naturally versus experimentally exposed
Strength – Lab Studies have external validity
Studies supporting bias effects were supported by the study
Strength
Studies that use experimental methods and a simulation involve careful controls and often a control group
Isolating IV’S measuring DV’S and controlling EV’S
High validity
Negative PTP studies (lots) meta analysis carried out
Larger samples, which means statistical analysis
(STEBLAY) claims
Weakness
Mock major studies using experimental method tend to lack ecological validity
Unless real drawers are used in real life situations there will be limitations in validity
Internet, may create problems regarding ecological validity
Limited general liability as most samples include students
