Jury decision making

Question 1

Define “Mock trials”

Answer 1

are re-enactments of a courtroom in which participants will take part in the staged trial. each taking a different role: jury member judge etc

Question 2

give a simple run down on how “Mock trials” go

Answer 2

• p’s make consider the case & make judgements on the evidence presented in written summarized scenario (vid/film).
• can discuss in separate rooms and can take 2 hrs through a 1-way mirror

Question 3

Define “shadow jury”

Answer 3

a group of people who will sit in a real-life trial and make their decisions based on what they see (generally in a public gallery)

Question 4

give a simple run down on how “shadow jury” go

Answer 4

• decision making is strictly monitored (quiet room + being recorded)
• hired by a trial consultant to which trials and report their impression -> based on what they see in court needs to be used to make a verdict of guilty/innocence

Question 5

strengths of Mock trials

Answer 5

• sample size can be big as the real case: pick 12-50 people (or more) making the data less skewed therefore more generalizable to society more easily
• high control by screen out any P’s that represent any extraneous and detected confounding variables, isolate specific factors, it operationalizes the IV to be able to find clear cause and effect, therefore, contains high validity

Question 6

weakness of Mock trials

Answer 6

• sample is very narrow, mainly uses uni students as it lacks variety such as having some more adults that are employed it, therefore, unable to represent wider society, questioning the credibility of the result
• transcript is quite brief plus the time needed which is a day just to complete a staged transcript so it’s unable to match what would actually happen in the real trial, therefore, reducing external validity
• lacks external validity. the action of family, expressions, atmosphere, feeling the weight of responsibly doesn’t quite match real trials as they lack to see the consequences as it’s staged therefore unable to represent real jury questioning the method

Question 7

strengths of a shadow jury

Answer 7

• since its a real-time trial the sample contains are pretty wide containing all different types of people’s ethnicity, background and occupation therefore more easily generalising onto society

Question 8

weakness of shadow jury

Answer 8

• quite difficult to obtain a sample as P’s don’t know how long the case last and it’s quite up to date for the details of the case, consequently, causes practical problems such as not everyone can stay in the public gallery hence forced to cull the sample size, therefore, the data will become skewed leading to validity becoming suspected

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