Factors Effecting Jury Decision Making A01 Flashcards
A01 pre trial publicity- definition
Definition- pre trial publicity is information in the media about a crime BEFORE the trial begins, it may in life facts about the crime and suspect, including of past offences (factual PTP) as well as comments and opinions (emotive PTP) e.g. interviews with neighbour, teacher. 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 news papers, TV, Social media
A01 impact of PTP
Knowing about past criminal records can affect how the jury attribute 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, 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 not jury.
Meta analysis A03
Strength- high reliable, multiple studies, secondary data,- wider samples of ppts ,reducing anomalies, giving more credibility conclusions 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 makw 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
application- charachteristics
mix/ variety of jurys, not all of same race/ gender, jurors dilute effect of race/ gender bias
