Juror Decision Making (wk 11)

Question 1

Guinther, 1988 on juries

Answer 1

“There is nothing quite like them in our society: A group of strangers brought together and required to sit in silence and listen to different versions of a story in which they have no personal interest, and who are locked inside a room where they must stay while they try to sort out what they believe to be so from all they have heard.”

Question 2

How Do We Study Jurors?

Answer 2

• Mock jurors
• Case studies/archives (real decisions, often confounds)
• Post trial interviews (more likely overseas, in NZ juror identities are protected heavily)
• Field experiments with real jurors

Question 3

Pre-trial publicity. Who does it most often disadvantage?

Answer 3

-The pre-trial publicity problem represents a conflict between the right to a fair trial and freedom of the press.

-Research looking at pre-trial media reports in criminal cases indicates a slant in favour of the prosecution (Imrich, Mullin, & Linz, 1995). Therefore, pretrial publicity can be expected to disadvantage the accused.

Question 4

When is pre-trial publicity likely to advantage the defendant for once?

Answer 4

If we see the defendant as a victim of another countries legal system.

Question 5

Steblay et al. 1999

Answer 5

-Meta analysis

-Investigated 44 PTP studies involving 5755 participants.

-Participants exposed to negative PTP were more likely to judge the defendant guilty than participants exposed to less or no negative PTP.

Question 6

Factors that Increase PTP Effects (Steblay et al., 1999; Ogloff & Vidmar, 1994)

Answer 6

Murder, sexual abuse, or drug crimes
* Multiple negative points in PTP
* Increased length between PTP and trial i.e. early pretrial publicity has more of an effect
* Emotional PTP (as opposed to factual PTP)
* PTP from TV (as opposed to print media)

All lead to an increase in guilty verdicts

Question 7

What does the New Zealand Law Commission say in regards to Pre Trial Publicity?

Answer 7

“The judge’s power to instruct jurors to disregard prejudicial pretrial publicity should be a sufficient safeguard against pressure on jurors”

New Zealand Law Commission, 1998, p. 53

Links to : instructions to disregard

Question 8

Are instructions to disregard effective?

Answer 8

-“The empirical research clearly demonstrates that instructions to disregard are ineffective in reducing the harm caused by inadmissible evidence and
improper arguments.”

-In fact, instructions to disregard often backfire, making matters worse

Question 9

Why might instructions to disregard backfire?

Answer 9

-Theory of Ironic Processes: when we make an effort not to think about something, it often dominates our thoughts.

-Reactance Theory: people are motivated to maintain their freedom. People don’t like being told to do something and often subsequently do the opposite.

-Jurors may prefer to rely on broad, commonsense notions of justice. For example, they might think that pretrial information should be able to factor into decisions because the past is a good predictor of future actions— therefore ignore instructions to disregard

Question 10

Models of juror decision making (list)

Answer 10

-Mathematical

-Cognitive/ explanation-based models

Question 11

Mathematical models to explain juror decision making?

Answer 11

-Basically a meter with guilty on one side, and not guilty on the opposite. Evidence presented sways meter toward guilty or not guilty.

-Every piece of evidence causes movement of the needle.

-Some models say that when the needle moves to guilty or not guilty decision is fixed. Other theories say it can move back with the presentation of any counter evidence.

-In a way assumes that all evidence has equal effect/ is interchanegble.

Question 12

Mathematical models to explain juror decision making?

Answer 12

-Basically a meter with guilty on one side, and not guilty on the opposite. Evidence presented sways meter toward guilty or not guilty.

-Every piece of evidence causes movement of the needle.

-Some models say that when the needle moves to guilty or not guilty decision is fixed. Other theories say it can move back with the presentation of any counter evidence.

-In a way assumes that all evidence has equal effect/ is interchangeable.

Question 13

Cognitive/ Explanation-based models

Answer 13

The Story Model (Pennington & Hastie, 1992) is the most famous of these:

Juror constructs a story based on:
– Evidence
– Personal knowledge or expectations of similar events (stereotypes come into play)
– Expectations or knowledge of what constitutes a complete story

Story is evaluated based on:
– Coverage
– Uniqueness
– Coherence (completeness, consistency, plausibility)

• Pennington and Hastie proposed that jurors may simultaneously weigh up several stories.
• Others have proposed that jurors form one story early on. As the trial progresses, they accept or reject new evidence based on how it conforms to the story (Carlson & Russo, 2001). This is referred to as pre-decisional distortion.

Question 14

Coverage as a means to evaluate stories

Answer 14

How well does your study account for all the evidence you have gotten?

Question 15

Uniqueness as a means to evaluate stories

Answer 15

The extend to which your story stands out relative to other possibilities

Question 16

Coherence as a means to evaluate stories

Answer 16

-Completeness (does it have all elements of a compete story?)

-Consistency (is the internal structure of the story good? Are there contradictions?)

-Plausibility (could this actually happen?)

Question 17

Pre-decisional distortion.

Answer 17

Distorted evidence you have been presented with to meet a preconceived idea/ story. Don’t consider all the information and then make a decision (pick and choose evidence)

Question 18

Efran (1974), Defendant attractiveness study

Answer 18

Part 1
-108 students answered the following 2 questions on a 6-point Likert scale:

1. Should jurors be influenced by the defendant’s character and previous history? (77% said yes)
2. Should jurors be influenced by the defendant’s attractiveness? (7% said yes)

Part 2
* 66 students (different participants from above) took part in a simulated jury experiment.

• Case study of a student caught cheating in an exam:
  -Attractive photograph
  -Less attractive photograph
  -No photograph (control)
• Participants were asked to rate defendant attractiveness, likelihood of guilt, and punishment severity.

The rating of the defendant attractiveness served to see if attractiveness was successfully manipulated i.e. does the experiments view of attractiveness line up with the participants- yes it did.

Attractive defendants were considered less likely to be guilty and were given less severe punishments than unattractive defendants.

When no photo was provided, ratings were midway between the two (attractive and non-attractive)

Question 19

Efran (1974), Defendant attractiveness study

Answer 19

Part 1
-108 students answered the following 2 questions on a 6-point Likert scale:

1. Should jurors be influenced by the defendant’s character and previous history? (77% said yes)
2. Should jurors be influenced by the defendant’s attractiveness? (7% said yes)

Part 2
* 66 students (different participants from above) took part in a simulated jury experiment.

• Case study of a student caught cheating in an exam:
  -Attractive photograph
  -Less attractive photograph
  -No photograph (control)
• Participants were asked to rate defendant attractiveness, likelihood of guilt, and punishment severity.

The rating of the defendant attractiveness served to see if attractiveness was successfully manipulated i.e. does the experiments view of attractiveness line up with the participants- yes it did.

Attractive defendants were considered less likely to be guilty and were given less severe punishments than unattractive defendants.

When no photo was provided, ratings were midway between the two (attractive and non-attractive)

Question 20

Exception to the findings of Efran et al. 1974

Answer 20

-When attractiveness helped a person commit the crime e.g. a man using his attractiveness to seduce women to rape

-The trend of being more lenient to attractive people in judgements of guilty/ degree of punishment they deserve does not hold here.

Question 21

What might the interaction between juror and defendant attractiveness be important as opposed to just looking at defendant attractiveness?

Answer 21

-Shared attributes between the juror and the defendant may increase the affinity between the individuals, resulting in increased leniency
(Shaver, 1970).

-What is beautiful is good (Efran, 1974).

-What happens when these two theories compete with one another? i.e. would an unattractive juror be more lenient to an unattractive defendant

Question 22

Darby & Jeffers (1988) effect of juror attractiveness

Answer 22

-Participants read and evaluated 3 judicial cases.

-Defendant attractiveness was manipulated (high, medium: control condition, low).

-Asked to make judgments of guilty, punishment severity, and attractiveness of defendant.

-Asked to complete a Self-Assessment Questionnaire

-For both juror groups, guilty convictions increased as defendant attractiveness decreased (so not much effect of juror attractiveness on guilty/ not guilty binary decision)

-Although overall, attractive jurors were more likely to convict.

-For attractive jurors, punishment severity increased as defendant attractiveness decreased (no conflict in theories- just see linear line as expected)

-For unattractive jurors, high attractive and low attractive defendants were given lower sentences than medium attractive defendants forming an upside down V shape in the graph. This fulfils both theories. So there was an effect of juror attractiveness on the more scale like measure of punishment severity.

Question 23

Can lawyers select the right jurors?

Answer 23

Quotes illustrating attempts to ‘profile’ jurors according to the decisions they are most likely to make:

-Never forget, almost every case has been won or lost when the jury is sworn.”
Defence lawyer quoted in Kressel and Kressel (2002)

“Women are more punitive than men by a score of about five to one. There’s a reason for that: Women always toe the line. Women are splendid jurors for
the prosecution in rape cases, baby cases.”
Spence, cited in Adler (1994)

“Never take a wealthy man on a jury. He will convict, unless the defendant is accused of violating the anti-trust law, selling worthless stocks or bonds, something like that.”
Defence lawyer, cited in Darrow (1936)

Quote showing that this likely does not work:
“Jury researchers have searched in vain for individual differences – race, gender, class, attitudes, or personality – that reliably predict a person’s verdict…[they] have almost always come up empty handed.”
Ellsworth & Reifman (2000)

Question 24

Ziesel & Diamond (1978). Are Lawyers accurate in their decisions to dismiss certain jurors?

Answer 24

-Are jurors who are dismissed during juror selection any more or less likely to convict?

-Examined juror votes in 12 criminal trials.

-Persuaded dismissed jurors to stay in court and observe the case

-Overall, lawyers are not much better than chance at selecting jurors who will return the “right” verdict.

-Defence lawyers tend to be better than prosecution lawyers.

-There is, however, a substantial degree of individual variation in lawyers’ success rates (best Defence lawyer in the study considerable higher percentage of good decisions than the average Defence lawyer)

Question 25

Important difference in the NZ justice system when compared to say America regarding the decision to dismiss lawyers?

Answer 25

-In NZ the lawyers don’t get to question potential witnesses Just have them walk up and say I don’t want you (limited amounts of times they can say this to). In America can interview them.

-Also, tend to be a bit more lenient here in terms of conflicts of interests i.e. knowing the person, lawyer etc. as it is so much more likely you will.

Question 26

The selection of a fore-person

Answer 26

-Foreperson= leader of the jury

-Likely to be: male, middle-aged, of high status in the community, professional or managerial position, experienced with regard to jury service

-More likely to be selected if sitting at head of deliberation table

-Also if you are the one to say we need to select a fore-person it is likely to be you

-Foreperson participates in deliberation process far more than the other jurors (accounting for 25 to 35% of speaking time).

Question 27

Exposure to other’s views: Asch’s conformity research

Answer 27

– Mean conformity rate was 33%.
– 30% conformed on more than half of the trials.
– Group size made little difference.
– The presence of one other dissenter reduced conformity, even if that dissenter was also incorrect.
– Participants attributed their responses to their own
misjudgment or the desire to fit in e.g. say someone is guilty even if don’t think they are because everyone else seems to think they are.

Question 28

Deliberation Style: 2 types (list)

Answer 28

-Verdict driven
-Evidence driven

Question 29

Verdict driven deliberation style

Answer 29

-Where the ultimate goal of the jury is to reach a verdict as quickly as possible.

-Will often take a vote soon after electing the foreperson

-Quickly focus discussion on key facts that are essential to reaching a final outcome

Question 30

Evidence driven deliberation style

Answer 30

– Where the jury concentrates on forming a logical story from the evidence.

-Often delay a vote until considerable discussion has taken place

-Deliberate longer and considers evidence more carefully

-Report greater satisfaction (know they have done a good job)

Question 31

What deliberation style is better?

Answer 31

-Juries tend to prefer a verdict-driven approach (want to get out fast), while the legal system would rather juries were evidence-driven.

-The effect of deliberation style on final verdict is not yet known.

Question 32

Group polarization hypothesis

Answer 32

-The average post group (post-discussion) response will tend to be more extreme in the same direction as the average pregroup (pre-discussion) response.

Question 33

Leniency bias

Answer 33

In criminal trials where the judge has disagreed with the jury’s decision, the jury was almost always more lenient than the judge i.e. the jury let the person off when the judge would have found them guilty.

Question 34

Devine et al. (2001)

Answer 34

• If 7 or fewer jurors favour conviction at the beginning of deliberations, the jury will probably acquit.
• If 10 or more jurors favour conviction at the beginning of deliberations, the jury will probably convict.
• If 8 or 9 jurors favour conviction, “the final verdict is basically a toss-up.

Question 35

Majority verdicts

Answer 35

-There are 12 jurors that make up a jury

-Standard procedure is that they have to reach a unanimous verdict

-When they can’t do this often it is just 1 individual who disagreed with everyone else

-Majority verdicts is a ‘law’ that was passed that means a jury verdict can be given in the majority when it is 11 to 1 (takes out the rogue)

-Important: Jurors don’t know at the start that 11 to 1 is an option so they are motivated to try make everyone agree/ come to a good decision.

-Jury can be hung when after days/ weeks of deliberation and the offer of 11 to 1 they still cannot reach a decision.