Week 10: Juror decision making Flashcards
Why should we study jury decision making?
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
Jurors are….
the finders of fact
What does it mean to be a finder of fact?
Determine fact from their appraisal from the evidence put before them
What do jurors serve as and what does it mean?
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
What is an example of jury nullification?
E.g. someone being prosecuted for murder when was actually assisted dying for terminally ill patients
Why else might serving on a jury be difficult?
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
Over the years, jurors have made many….
Controversial decisions
People who hear about these decisions, wonder how it was possible to reach this verdict
Why can’t we tell how good jurors are at reaching the right verdict (2)?
- 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)
Explain an approach that has been taken in the past to evaluate how ‘good’ juries are
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
Why look at individual jurors?
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)
Are there any non-experimental methodologies for studying jurors?
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)
Experimental methodologies for studying jurors are called….
Mock-juror simulaitons
What format can mock-juror simulations come in?
Written, audio or video scenarios - something that conveys case relevant information to the mock jurors
What do mock juror simulations use instead of a categorical guilty/not-guilty verdicts?
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)
Explain a simple mock-juror method
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
What are the pros and cons of mock-juror simulations?
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
What is the primary basis for juror verdicts?
The strength of evidence (SOE) - generally trying to base their decisions on sensible things
What evidence do jurors tend to like? but what are the issues?
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
Confidence epiphanies?
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
Jurors also place a lot of weight on consistencies.. explain
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
What is the independence of evidence?
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
Jurors also love….
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
What aspect of jurors listening to experts is hard?
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
Jurors love confessions.. explain
They are particularly compelling and hard for jurors to discount
How do jurors perceive high pressure confessions?
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)
What is less encouraging about juror decision making?
They are not great at assessing the quality of evidence that they find
What are non-evidential variables?
Factors that have no value but influence none the less
What are some non-evidential variables that affect jurors decisions on an individual level?
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)
Over correction of non-evidential influences?
May overcorrect e.g. reach verdict that black individual isn’t guilty just to prove absence of racism
How does pre-trial publicity influence juror decision making?
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)
What are the 2 routes to persuasion?
Systematic processing (central)
Heuristic (peripheral) processing
Engage in each of these to differing degrees
What is systematic processing?
Detailed and analytical processing - careful analysis of relevant information
What is heuristic processing?
Processing guided by jurors’ intuitive theories - lacks the cognitive effort associated with systematic processing
What factors influence the kind of processing jurors will enagage in?
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)
What processing type should jurors be using?
Systematic
- but influential heuristics may creep in and influence
What happens when we increase task complexity for jurors?
Heuristic processes creep in because systematic processing gets too hard and stereotypes can then have biasing effects on decision making
What affects do heuristics have on recall of case information?
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
What are the 2 models that relate to how jurors synthesise complex evidence into a verdict?
- Formal (mathematical)
2. Story
What is the formal (mathematical) model?
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
What is the story model?
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
What are the 3 basic criteria the juror assesses their story in accordance to (story model)?
- Coverage: Extent to which story covers the necessary evidence - can story account for it all
- Coherence: do they fit together in a logically coherent or consistent way
- Uniqueness: does this story offer a uniquely strong account or uniquely good fit
What are the 3 processes involved in forming the story and verdict (story model)?
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)
What does the formal model provide insight into?
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
Evidence for the story model?
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
How can we think of these two models working together (formal and story)
- Story being continually updated as more data comes in
- Story progressively moving towards/away from criterion/decision rule as it updates
What is the definition of confirmation bias?
A preference for information that confirms rather than disconfirms an already existing belief and a proneness towards belief-consistent interpretations of ambiguous information
Awareness of confirmation bias being a naturally occurring influence?
Can reduce its effects
