Week 10: Juror decision making

Question 1

Why should we study jury decision making?

Answer 1

They play a central role in the CJS

All information from interviews, attorneys etc etc - all bottle necks at the jury
All of this stuff needs to make up a case compelling enough to convince the jury that a defendant is guilty beyond reasonable doubt

Question 2

Jurors are….

Answer 2

the finders of fact

Question 3

What does it mean to be a finder of fact?

Answer 3

Determine fact from their appraisal from the evidence put before them

Question 4

What do jurors serve as and what does it mean?

Answer 4

The conscience of the community

Jury nullification/equity
- Ability for the jury to decide that the prosecutor has met the burden of proof against the defendant (they believe they are guilty) BUT believe they shouldn’t be punished because the law that has been broken is immoral or goes against the standards of the community
Jury decides the law is ‘null’ or ‘nothing’

Doesn’t happen often

Question 5

What is an example of jury nullification?

Answer 5

E.g. someone being prosecuted for murder when was actually assisted dying for terminally ill patients

Question 6

Why else might serving on a jury be difficult?

Answer 6

It is a situation where lay people have to make important/complex decisions

If we can understand how these people in this difficult context go about making these decisions, perhaps we can help to come up with procedures to help them make these decisions

Question 7

Over the years, jurors have made many….

Answer 7

Controversial decisions

People who hear about these decisions, wonder how it was possible to reach this verdict

Question 8

Why can’t we tell how good jurors are at reaching the right verdict (2)?

Answer 8

• Establishing ground truth: cannot actually establish what happened (establishing the guilt or otherwise of the defendant is almost impossible)
• Not clear when ‘not-guilty’ is the right verdict: clearly if they’re innocent but sometimes even when the defendant is guilty, a not-guilty verdict may still be the right verdict (relates to reasonable doubt)

Question 9

Explain an approach that has been taken in the past to evaluate how ‘good’ juries are

Answer 9

Comparing verdict with verdict judges would have reached
Study:
- in cases where they convicted, judges would have also convicted in like 90% of cases
- In cases where juries said not-guilty, judges would have prosecuted in a lot of these cases (doesn’t mean jurors are getting it wrong)

What does this suggest? that our juries are perhaps a little too lenient

Question 10

Why look at individual jurors?

Answer 10

Helps us to isolate the basic cognitive processes that are involved

It is easier to look at them individually than as a group - time, space, statistical power

Individual juror verdict is the best predictor of post deliberation jury verdicts (90% of cases)

Question 11

Are there any non-experimental methodologies for studying jurors?

Answer 11

Yes there are but these are limited because we can’t actually observe jurors in real time - violated court regulations

We can talk to them after but this then relies on self-report data: leaves a lot unknown

• Asking to recall - may not remember everything accurately
• people also don’t have privileged access to their internal states - we aren’t always aware of what the causes for our decisions were
• may be social desirability effects at play (may want to preserve impression)

Question 12

Experimental methodologies for studying jurors are called….

Answer 12

Mock-juror simulaitons

Question 13

What format can mock-juror simulations come in?

Answer 13

Written, audio or video scenarios - something that conveys case relevant information to the mock jurors

Question 14

What do mock juror simulations use instead of a categorical guilty/not-guilty verdicts?

Answer 14

They use a scale of likely guilt
- departs from real work situations but can be a way to measure the effects of experimental manipulations (can reflect confidence)

Question 15

Explain a simple mock-juror method

Answer 15

Make 2 (or more) versions of the one text and only vary one factor such as race

• then gather verdicts
• can link any differences to the variable that you’ve changed

Question 16

What are the pros and cons of mock-juror simulations?

Answer 16

Really good control - can isolate the effects of manipulations but this comes at a cost of realism (much less complex than real case, less juror motivation than real case)

Decrease of realism doesn’t entail a loss of generalisability to real life situations

Question 17

What is the primary basis for juror verdicts?

Answer 17

The strength of evidence (SOE) - generally trying to base their decisions on sensible things

Question 18

What evidence do jurors tend to like? but what are the issues?

Answer 18

Eyewitness evidence - if an eyewitness has identified someone, jurors will find this very compelling
BUT..
Not good at critiquing ID in terms of under conditions of procedural biases

Find confident witnesses compelling - appears to be a beacon of clarity in otherwise murkiness (believe confidence = accuracy)

• Not sensitive to the effect that social influences can have on witness confidence
• not sensitive to pre-trial prep inflates confidence

Question 19

Confidence epiphanies?

Answer 19

If jurors pick up on an increase in confidence before trial etc - if witness can provide an explanation for this increase, they understand and don’t find it suspicious
- enlightenment of issue with confidence can be taken away fairly quickly

Question 20

Jurors also place a lot of weight on consistencies.. explain

Answer 20

Not sensitive to the nature of memory and that we will get inconsistencies - doesn’t decrease the quality of the evidence and a consistent testimony doesn’t mean accuracy

The consistency of case: if everything lines up etc
BUT…
Aren’t sensitive to the fact that there are a number of reasons why pieces of evidence might add up that have nothing to do with the quality of evidence being presented (e.g if witnesses have discussed event, their accounts may reflect social transfer of information rather than 2 independently formed consistent memories for the event - maybe both witnesses picked up the detail from investigating officer or media report) may be an indication that a problematic factor may have equally affected both witnesses

Question 21

What is the independence of evidence?

Answer 21

Each piece of evidence individually points towards the guilt of a suspect but what we know is that actually evidence interacts

• Jurors don’t see the process of it all lining up etc

Question 22

Jurors also love….

Answer 22

Expert testimony because they know more than we do
- defer to this but jurors aren’t equipped to assess the reliability of the information provided by the expert (white-coat syndrome)

Tend to believe even when they admit that their decision may have been influenced by prior knowledge - they do not reevaluate

Question 23

What aspect of jurors listening to experts is hard?

Answer 23

If there are competing witnesses for both sides..
How can a lay person weigh up the evidence from experts and decide which one is more supportable

• Aren’t supported to make best use of this information from experts

Question 24

Jurors love confessions.. explain

Answer 24

They are particularly compelling and hard for jurors to discount

Question 25

How do jurors perceive high pressure confessions?

Answer 25

As less voluntary and less reliable

HOWEVER, they still increase guilty verdicts even when acknowledging the cohesion - but report it had no impact (self-report issues)

Question 26

What is less encouraging about juror decision making?

Answer 26

They are not great at assessing the quality of evidence that they find

Question 27

What are non-evidential variables?

Answer 27

Factors that have no value but influence none the less

Question 28

What are some non-evidential variables that affect jurors decisions on an individual level?

Answer 28

Attractiveness - more favourable if attractive

SES - more favourable for higher SES individuals

Gender - more lenient towards females

Race - we are more lenient on members of our in-group and tougher on out-group, as well as stereotyping that can amplify if crime maps to stereotype

However they do interact with type of crime in question (e.g. if charged with crime that attractiveness would have aided them in eg fraud, can see reversal and may be harsher)

Question 29

Over correction of non-evidential influences?

Answer 29

May overcorrect e.g. reach verdict that black individual isn’t guilty just to prove absence of racism

Question 30

How does pre-trial publicity influence juror decision making?

Answer 30

Negative = increased guilty verdicts as can distort information processing (creates beliefs in mind - relates to confirmation bias and can affect the way they encounter and interpret the evidence they see)

Question 31

What are the 2 routes to persuasion?

Answer 31

Systematic processing (central)

Heuristic (peripheral) processing

Engage in each of these to differing degrees

Question 32

What is systematic processing?

Answer 32

Detailed and analytical processing - careful analysis of relevant information

Question 33

What is heuristic processing?

Answer 33

Processing guided by jurors’ intuitive theories - lacks the cognitive effort associated with systematic processing

Question 34

What factors influence the kind of processing jurors will enagage in?

Answer 34

Motivation and ability - systematic is time consuming, cognitive effort and demanding

Context - extent to which you have relevant heuristics and perceive them to be reliable will determine likelihood of using these

Task complexity (if complex and important typically people will analyse etc), time restrictions (but if don’t have enough time, may rely on heuristics instead)

Question 35

What processing type should jurors be using?

Answer 35

Systematic

- but influential heuristics may creep in and influence

Question 36

What happens when we increase task complexity for jurors?

Answer 36

Heuristic processes creep in because systematic processing gets too hard and stereotypes can then have biasing effects on decision making

Question 37

What affects do heuristics have on recall of case information?

Answer 37

Information that is not consistent with HP are not attended to - an indication that it maybe wasn’t attended to well at the time

So not just influencing the decision people reach but the information they rely on when making the decision

Question 38

What are the 2 models that relate to how jurors synthesise complex evidence into a verdict?

Answer 38

1. Formal (mathematical)

2. Story

Question 39

What is the formal (mathematical) model?

Answer 39

As the juror sits and encounters information in a trial or simulation, the sift through and they fall into one of 2 accumulators (guilty/not-guilty) May also be weighted by strength or ‘compellingness’ of evidence

Once one of these accumulators reaches the decision criteria - this is when they are able to make a decision

Question 40

What is the story model?

Answer 40

As jurors encounter evidence, what they’re trying to do is weave this evidence into a narrative of whats happened and how the defendant was involved

A very active and constructive process - making meaning of information they are given

Question 41

What are the 3 basic criteria the juror assesses their story in accordance to (story model)?

Answer 41

1. Coverage: Extent to which story covers the necessary evidence - can story account for it all
2. Coherence: do they fit together in a logically coherent or consistent way
3. Uniqueness: does this story offer a uniquely strong account or uniquely good fit

Question 42

What are the 3 processes involved in forming the story and verdict (story model)?

Answer 42

Integration and evaluation

Learn verdict definition - specific defining criteria that must be met to find guilty

Match verdict to their story

(Building a narrative and then using it to see which possible verdict is best supported)

Question 43

What does the formal model provide insight into?

Answer 43

Can show how jurors responses to evidence and perceptions of defendant guilt are likely to change as different evidence is presented throughout the time course of the trial

Can see real time accumulation in action

Question 44

Evidence for the story model?

Answer 44

If evidence is presented in a logical, coherent and chronological fashion, jurors tend to find this evidence more compelling - maybe because it is easier to be converted into a narrative

Question 45

How can we think of these two models working together (formal and story)

Answer 45

• Story being continually updated as more data comes in

- Story progressively moving towards/away from criterion/decision rule as it updates

Question 46

What is the definition of confirmation bias?

Answer 46

A preference for information that confirms rather than disconfirms an already existing belief and a proneness towards belief-consistent interpretations of ambiguous information

Question 47

Awareness of confirmation bias being a naturally occurring influence?

Answer 47

Can reduce its effects