Reaching a Verdict - Persuading a Jury

Question 0

What was the aim of Pennington and Hastie’s study?

Answer 0

To investigate whether or not story evidence summaries are true causes of the final verdict decisions and the extent to which story order effects confidence in those decisions.

Question 1

What was the study on the effect of order of testimony?

Answer 1

Pennington and Hastie, effects of memory structure on judgement

Question 2

What is the method of Pennington and Hastie’s study?

Answer 2

A laboratory experiment, the second of two reported in this paper.

Question 3

Who were the participants in Pennington and Hastie’s study?

Answer 3

130 students from Northwestern University and Chicago University who were paid for their participation in an hour-long experiment. They were allocated to one of four conditions in roughly equal numbers.

Question 4

What was the procedure of Pennington and Hastie’s study?

Answer 4

Participants woks listen to a tape recording of the stimulus trial and then responded to written questions. They were told to reach a guilty or not guilty verdict on a murder charge and then to rate their confidence on a 5-point scale. They were separated by partitions and did not interact with each other. In the story-order condition, evidence was arranged in its natural order. In the witness-order condition, evidence items were arranged in the order closest to the original trial. In all cases the stimulus trial began with the indictment and followed the normal procedure, ending with the judge’s instructions.

Question 5

What were the results of Pennington and Hastie’s study?

Answer 5

Story order persuaded more jurors of Cadwell’s guilt in the prosecution case. If the defence presented its evidence in witness order, even more jurors would find a guilty verdict; if the positions reversed and the defence had the benefit of the story order, the guilty rate drops to 31%. The greatest confidence in their verdict was expressed by those who had heard the defence or prosecution in story order. Least confidence was expressed by those who heard the two witness-order conditions.

Question 6

What was the study on persuasion?

Answer 6

Cutler, the effect of the expert witness on jury perception of eyewitness testimony

Question 7

What was the aim of Cutler’s study?

Answer 7

To investigate whether hearing about psychological research from an expert witness which casts doubt on the accuracy of eye witness testimony would affect a juror’s decision-making by making them more sceptical about such testimony.

Question 8

What was the method of Cutler’s study?

Answer 8

A laboratory experiment using s videotaped mock trial.

Question 9

Who were the participants in Cutler’s study?

Answer 9

538 undergraduates who were given extra credits for their introductory psychology course.

Question 10

What was the procedure of Cutler’s study?

Answer 10

Participants viewed s videotaped robbery trial in groups of 2-8. Afterwards, they independently completed a questionnaire containing the dependant measures, which were the verdict, a memory test and rating scales for how confident they were in their verdict. There were four independent variables. 1. Witness identifying conditions - whether the conditions were good, i.e the robber was disguised/ brandishing a handgun or the conditions were good i.e no disguise/hidden gun/ only 2 day delay in identification. 2. Witness confidence, 80% or 100% confident she had correctly identified the robber. 3. Form of testimony, whether the expect psychologist described the results of eyewitness research in a descriptive way or using percentages or correct or incorrect identifications. 4. Expert opinion - in half the trials the expert expressed his opinion on s scale from 0 (least likely to be correct) to 25 (most likely to be correct). These decisions coincided with the poor of good conditions in variable 1.

Question 11

What were the results of Cutler’s study?

Answer 11

Juror verdicts - when the witness identifying conditions were good, more guilty verdicts were given and this effect increased if the expert witness had given descriptive testimony. lol other variables wee less significant or insignificant.
Juror memory - 85% or more correctly recalled the testimony, so memory cannot be blamed for lack of jurors’ judgements. Memory for what the expert said was also good, 50%+ recalled the four stages of memory, 81% recalled at least one stage. They also recalled correctly what the expert had said about weapons effects disguises and delays in identification.
Juror confidence - under the good witnessing identifying conditions the jurors had more confidence in accuracy of the identification. The effect was stronger if they had heard the expert witness and if the witness was 100% confident rather than 80%.

Question 12

What did Cutler’s study prove about expert testimony’s effect or jurors?

Answer 12

Their sensitivity to problems with evidence is improved and may help to prevent miscarriages of justice.

Question 13

What was the study on effect of evidence being ruled inadmissible?

Answer 13

Pickel, investigating the effect of instructions to disregard inadmissible evidence

Question 14

Why were the aims of Pickel’s study?

Answer 14

1. To look at the effect of prior convictions
2. To look at the role of the judge’s instructions when they were followed by a legal explanation
3. To examine how much the credibility of the witness affects the juror’s ability to ignore inadmissible statements

Question 15

What was the method of Pickel’s study?

Answer 15

An experiment using a mock trial of a fictional theft using a mock jury. The critical evidence was introduced ‘by accident’ by the witnesses. The item was objected to by the attorney and then either allowed or overruled by the judge. In the former case, when jurors were instructed to ignore the inadmissible evidence, this ruling by the judge was sometimes supported by a legal explanation: that the inadmissible evidence might be suggestive of bad character in the defendant and so bias the jury. Sometimes no legal explanation was provided.

Question 16

Who were the participants in Pickel’s study?

Answer 16

236 Ball State University psychology students participated as part of a course requirement. They were assigned randomly to one of the conditions in an independent measures design.

Question 17

What was the procedure of Pickel’s study?

Answer 17

Participants listened to an audiotape of the trial and then completed a questionnaire asking them to make several decisions a out the case. One was the verdict, the second was their estimate of the probate guilt of the defendant and the third was a rating on a 10 point scale of the extent to which knowledge of the prior conviction caused them to believe the defendant was guilty. Finally, they gave a rating on the credibility of each witness. There was a control group who did not get the critical evidence.

Question 18

What were the results of Pickel’s study?

Answer 18

Mock jurors who had heard the critical evidence ruled inadmissible and who received no explanation were able to follow instructions and ignore evidence. Those who heard the evidence ruled inadmissible and who were given the explanation were more likely to find the defendant guilty and were clearly not able to disregard it. No evidence was found to support the hypothesis that the credibility of the witness would affect the juror’s ability to disregard inadmissible evidence as measured by the 10-point scale.

Question 19

What were the conclusions of Pickel’s study?

Answer 19

Calling attention to inadmissible evidence makes it more important to the jury and they then pay more attention. They apply their sense of fair play to decide whether or not to make use of it, which can create the ‘backfire effect’. As long as the tactic is available to both sides and administered impartially by the judge,it could be a persuasive tool and is a minor matter.