pre trail publicity Flashcards
what is PTP
information in the media about a case
and a defendant may lead to prejudice during the trial. As with characteristics of the defendant ie being good looking can lead to unfair carry out of justice
what is a jury
the role of the jury is decided whether the convicted is ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’ this is done based off the idea that you are innocent until proven guilty. a jury must be impartial and independent from the convicted/victim. 12 people are elected at random, you must be over 18, typically last up to 10 working days (but can go on longer). having a criminal conviction will not automatically rule you out of jury service.
give examples of information that can influence jury decision making
Pre-trial publicity can involve two types of information; factual publicity is incriminating information about the defendant or the case, such as what happened during the crime and such information. Emotional publicity is information that could arouse negative feelings such as the past of the defendant of victim and this type of information is more likely to have a longer lasting effect on jury members and is more likely to affect the opinions they form
give research to support PTP. how good
Steblay did a meta analysis on the effects of PTP and found that participants (jurors) exposed to negative pre-trial publicity were more likely to judge a defendant guilty than those who had no pre-trial publicity or no negative pre-trial publicity. The percentage of guilty verdicts in the negative pre-trial publicity condition was 59 per cent and, in the
control conditions, the mean percentage of guilty verdicts was 45 per cent. low internal validity as they used secondary data collected by other researchers so cannot ensure that the results are reliable and not subject to research bias
give more research to support PTP. How good
Ogloff and Vidmar, looked at the effect of TV as pre –trial publicity on a real child sexual abuse case with lots of pre- trial publicity. They found that potential Jurors expressed a negative bias when exposed to negative pre- trial publicity and were unaware of the biases they held, making it more likely to influence their decisions and judgements. this has high ecological validity as the study was carried out in real life conditions involving true, raw emotions and opinions of the jury.
give a conclusion for PTP
PTP can be reduced if only certain individual hold such biases, this effect may be cancelled by the other remaining jury members, as there are 12 members altogether, and can form a neutral overall Jury. gagging of the media by the judge can restrict what the media are allowed to say ie release in newspapers. so it can control the information released in the media during high profile cases that may influence the juries decision making.
describe two different types of juries that can be used to study jury decision making
shadow and mock
give details of shadow juries
a group of people who will sit in a gallery during a real life court case, they are able to make a decision based on what they see - ‘guility’ or ‘not guility’ they have no influence over the actual trail
high ecological validty - a real life case is used with real evidence and pre trail publicity is the same
good ethics - they wont feel the same level of stress and anxiety as real jury
low generaliability - hard to gain a random and representative sample that you get on an actual jury
low validty - the jury have no influence over the final outcome so they dont have any responsibility - may be less thorough in their outcome
describe mock juries
a staged trail, ppts will take on different roles within the jury ie a judge, member of the jury. they get to hear both sides of the evidence and discuss the case for 2 hours (typically). researchers can observe through a one way mirror
high generalizability - random selection process the same as an actual jury
high reliability - use a standadised case that can easily be replicated to test the consistency of the findings.
low internal validity - as the mock jurors know that the case isnt real so they dont feel the same level of repsonsibility
low external vaility - doesnt reflect the real environment of the family or peson in question during a real life court case.
