Jury Decision Making 2

Question 1

Problems in studying jury decision-making processes:

Lack of access to real juries:

Answer 1

Juries deliberate in secret: cannot be filmed or watched.

Question 2

Problems in using mock juries:

Answer 2

Often undergraduates; sometimes jury-eligible public.
Given written scenarios – usually simpler and shorter than real trials.
Differ from real juries in terms of time spent in court and in deliberation.
Hard to simulate group dynamics of real juries (especially on-line studies, and lab studies using individuals).
Mock-trial verdict has no real-world consequences for “defendant”.

Question 3

Visher (1987):

Answer 3

Review of research suggests it exaggerates effects of extra-legal factors.
Jurors’ demographic characteristics are poor predictors of verdicts.
Defendants’ and victims’ characteristics do affect juror decisions.
- defendant: “social attractiveness” important.
- victim: “character” important (“contributory fault”).
Conclusion: real jurors’ decisions are dominated by evidence – physical, and from witnesses.

Question 4

Devine and Caughlin (2014):

Answer 4

272 studies on how 11 juror and defendant characteristics affect individual jurors’ judgements of guilt.

• Little effect of participant type (student, community, unused jurors, mixed).
• No effects of defendant attractiveness or gender*.
• Weak other-race severity bias for property and sex crimes but not for violent cases or murder.
• *Effects of case: female jurors more likely to convict for adult sex crimes/child abuse cases.

Question 5

Effects of extra-legal information: rape myths:

Answer 5

Bohner et al (2009):
Four categories of rape myth -
(a) beliefs that blame the victim (e.g. provocative clothing, drunk)
(b) beliefs that excuse the offender (men can’t help themselves)
(c) beliefs that doubt allegations (cry “rape” for revenge or guilt)
(d) beliefs suggesting that rape only occurs in certain groups in society (mentally ill; only occurs with strangers).

McGee et al (2011):
Telephone interviews with 3120 members of Irish public.
40% believed rape due to overwhelming sexual desire.
29% believed wearing tight tops or short skirts invites rape.
40% believed accusations of rape are often false.

Schutte and Hosch (1997):
Men are more likely than women to acquit rape defendants.

Maeder, Yamamoto and Saliba (2015):
Men influenced by victim attractiveness: more certain of defendant’s guilt if woman was unattractive. (Attractive woman evoked “overwhelmed by sexual desire” myth?)
Women uninfluenced by victim attractiveness.

Question 6

How do jurors arrive at their decision?

Answer 6

Legal model of decision-making:
Jurors pay complete attention.
They withhold judgement until they know all of the evidence.
They discard any information that the judge directs them to ignore.

Actual decision-making:
Decisions based on schemes, stereotypes, personal beliefs, inlfuenced by extraneous information.

Question 7

Pennington and Hastie (1981, 1988, 1992):

“Story model” of decision-making process.

Answer 7

Pre-deliberation phase: jurors independently evaluate conflicting information (EWT, scientific evidence) and construct a story that provides a plausible explanation of evidence.
Filter information through own experiences, beliefs, etc.
Influence of schemas, cognitive heuristics, emotions.

Deliberation phase: jurors reconcile their differences (social psychology of group decision making).

Question 8

Cognitive heuristics:

Answer 8

Availability heuristic:
Decision-making is unduly affected by ease with which information comes to mind.
Representativeness heuristic:
People use stereotypical examples to aid decision-making.

Question 9

Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory (CEST):

Answer 9

Epstein (1994): two information-processing modes –
Experiential –”gut-level”, emotionally-based system. Processes information rapidly and effortlessly (default mode). Associative, analogical, relies on heuristics (Tversky and Kahneman, 1974, 1982).

Rational – analytical, intentional and effortful system, using logic and evidence.

Situational demands and individual differences affect which system predominates.

Question 10

Lieberman and Krauss (2009):

Answer 10

Verdict-driven juries –
Take early vote and then discuss verdict options.
Evidence-driven juries –
Evaluate evidence and attempt to identify the truth. Take late vote.
Verdict requirement affects how the jury behaves –
When unanimity is required, juries tend to be evidence-driven and more thorough.