Juror Decision Making Flashcards
The conflict between a defendant’s right to a fair trial and freedom of the press represents which problem?
Pre-trial publicity
Pre-trial publicity typically leans more in favour of:
The prosecution
(The defendant is more likely to be disadvantaged by pre-trial media publicity. The more PTP an audience is exposed to, the more likely they are to judge a defendant as guilty.)
TV stories about a crime are more likely to increase the effects of pre-trial media publicity than those printed in the newspaper. True or false?
True
(Other factors that increase effects of PTP include a higher severity of crime, more negative points made about the accused, emotion-based stories and an increased length between PTP and the trial.)
Pennington & Hastie (1992) proposed that jurors create and evaluate a story based on evidence, personal knowledge and expectations. This model of decision-making is called:
The story model
I am a juror. I decide that the defendant is guilty early on in the trial because he has a haircut that I don’t like. I become more confident in my verdict when a witness comes forward and says she does not like his choice of clothing. I refuse to accept evidence that refutes these arguments. This is an example of which bias?
Pre-decisional distortion
(A bias that occurs when jurors form a single story early on about a case, or reject new evidence that doesn’t conform to their initial verdict (Carlson & Russo, 2001.))
Attractiveness is an influential factor in deciding if a defendant is guilty. True or false?
True
(Efran (1974) found that defendants were less likely to be found guilty if they were considered attractive, despite 77% of participants saying before the experiment that jurors should be influenced by the defendant’s character.)
The theory that the foreperson of a jury is most likely to be white, middle-aged and of a high status or managerial position is:
The effect of deliberation
Group size increased the effects of conformity in Asch’s conformity research. True or false?
False.
(Misjudgment and a desire to fit in were likely to increase conformity, whereas group size made little difference. The presence of a single other non-conformer was enough to reduce the effects of conformity.)
Verdict driven and what other deliberation style is commonly used in a trial?
Evidence driven.
(In a verdict-driven trial, the jury wants to reach a verdict as quickly as possible and focuses only on important information. In an evidence-driven trial, the jury focuses on constructing a logical story about the crime.)
What deliberation style is preferred by the jury?
Verdict-driven
What deliberation style is preferred by the legal system?
Evidence-driven
The tendency for members of a group discussing an issue to lean towards a more extreme opinion than the one previously held is called:
Group polarisation
Todd is discussing with a group of climate activists about the impact of Dunedin drinking culture on climate change. After the discussion, Todd decides to join them in protesting outside Otago Uni encouraging the proctor to expel students who drink on weekends. This is an example of:
Group polarisation
(The initial opinion of Todd and the group was that climate change was being reinforced by Dunedin drinking culture. The extreme position they held at the end of the discussion was that Dunedin students must be punished severely for drinking on the weekends, as they believed it was contributing to climate change.)
The jury is almost always more lenient than the judge in a trial. This is called:
Leniency bias
