Jury decision making 45 years of empirical research on. In keeping with the emphasis of mostjury research, i focus primarily ondecisionmaking in criminal. Social influence in jury decision making magnus research. Experimental research on jury decisionmaking jstor. Previous research on juror decisionmaking has particularly focused on juror demographic variables such as sex, education, and occupation, in combination with traits of the expert such as credentials, physical appearance, and communicative ability. Our latest webinar on march 26, paula hannafordagor, director of ncscs center for jury studies, hosted a webinar on managing juries and jury trials during the covid19 pandemic. I explained that it was a scientific study of scientific studies conducted on how juries work.
Application strategies to influence jury decision making. Maccoun because trial juries deliberate in secrecy, legal debates about jury functioning have relied heavily on anecdote and speculation. A while back i gave you a suggestion that you consider buying a book titled jury decision making. Groundbreaking research finds juries fair and effective. Most of these factors have very little to do with the evidence presented to the jury.
Some of these models have involved attempts to identify relationships between juror or population characteristics and jury outcomes e. In an attempt to answer my question, i conducted an experimental study on jury decision making among undergraduate students at boise state university, by use of a survey. The jury method of deciding guilt involves group deliberation with an obligation of group unanimity, or adherence to some other formal decision rule, before a decision can be made foss, 1976. Experimental research on jury decisionmaking author. In recent years, investigators have begun to challenge many common assumptions about jury be havior. This study examines juror decision making in civil suits against police officers alleged to have engaged in illegal searches, using simulated case materials and mock jurors drawn both from adults called for jury service and a student subject pool. Cjp, represents a massive field study of jury decision making in capital trials. Juror decision making social science flashcards quizlet. Specifically, the study finds that people in subdivided groups participated more. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. Juror decisionmaking british society of criminology. A mockjury scenario was conducted to evaluate the effects that eyewitness testimonies had on 9 participants. In this thesis i combine the social network analysis approach with the traditional experimental approach to study the phenomena of jury decisionmaking. Thus, jury decision making has implications for psychological theory, and psychological research.
I examine whether with each trial a social network is formed. Decision making problem solving and decisionmaking are a natural process in the organizational setting. But the fact that we find decisionmaking biases in these highstakes situations, with explicit deliberations at the group jury level, raises the possibility that these would be found in lower stakes settings too. Leading jury and decisionmaking researchers recently discussed how psychological science can examine individual and. In order to study the true affects the testimonies have on decision making process, eyewitness testimonies were manipulated into 3 different categories credible eyewitness, discredited eyewitness and no eyewitness. The study of jury attitudes and decision making in the world of litigation versus the academic study of jurors involves studying the responses of people in a particular venue or geographic location who represent potential actual jurors.
This article is the first in a series on jury decision making in a simulated civil case. A study of jury decision making factors, moment of. Keywords juries, decision making, public policy the jury is a unique institution. From an individuals perspective in terms of undertaking clearly defined tasks, decisions are made when situations present the need to select from among various alternatives.
It involved a twoyear survey of more than 1,000 jurors at crown courts and a separate study of over 68,000 jury verdicts. Colin turner for helping to pilot the jury decisionmaking study. The experiment assesses the impact of a cognitive process thehindsight bias and of individual attitudes on awards and finds that both are related. Jury decisionmaking has implications for psychological research. It is quite useful to know the stages of a court case, so that you can better understand how, it is influenced, and how changes can be implemented. Pdf the purpose of this study was to gain insight into jury decision waking factors, jury decision timing, and the jury decision making process by. They were asked several questions about how they felt about the defendant and the. Jury decision making 625 preaches, most jurylevel models have sought to predict jury outcomes e. Identification of variables which showed a significant relationship to a trial vote of guilty. This article examines the formation of individual verdict preferences, the impact of deliberation, and the role of the dissenter using data from nearly 3,500 jurors who decided felony cases. Its approach, while theoretical, allows the practitioner to gain a thorough understanding of key issues in jury behavior. Although different concepts on the theoretical framework for decision making have emerged, the standard decision.
Juror decision making, attitudes, and the hindsight bias. The jury setting in the criminal justice system offers a unique social setting that provides the opportunity for social influence within networks. A look inside the jury room yvette tinsley abstract although there exists a large body of research literature on the jury system, only a small amount of research has been able to tap the attitudes and behaviour of actual jurors, and this has principally been confined to the united states. Presents a case study on the dynamics of jury decisionmaking. There has always been a question about whether scientists can adequately study jury decision making in the lab e. Juror personality traits as predictors of decisionmaking.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of personal characteristics of the defendant and the victim on jury decision making. The purpose of this study was to gain insight into jury decision waking factors, jury decision timing, and the jury decision making process by talking to actual trial jurors. Psychological research has implications for jurydecision making. It requires ordinary citizens who lack legal training to hear evidence, make sense of con.
What trial consultants should know about jury decision making. In the new zealand study, there were five compromise. Thus, this study is important because it attempts to generate knowledge about jury decision making through interviews with actual trial jurors. Conversely, psychological research can inform trial procedures, enabling juries to benefit from fairer procedures and reach better outcomes. The present research does just that, and though it examines decision making in the context of a jury evaluating the trial of a black defendant, this article focuses on the more general relationship between racial diversity and processes of group decision making. Jury decision making research university of wyoming. In the former, the individual is taken as the primary unit of analysis. The researcher is a reporter, detective, ethnographer, and. Diamond, 1997, and researchers typically attempt to add. The psychology of jurors decisionmaking its your job to know how they think, what persuades and what puts them off 2018 january. As the forensic scientist tries to recon struct social reality to help the court figure out what happened at the scene of the crime, the practitioner of the case study tries to solve the puzzle of jury decision making by piecing ev erything together. Experimental research on jury decisionmaking robert j. The jurors, the two teams of lawyers, as well as the accused and the judge, all form a social network with cliques and leaders.
Such studies examine whether jurors attitudes and victims and defendants characteristics have a measurable impact on these decisions. If the walls of the jury room could talk, they would tell us that the decision making process typically passes through three stages hastie et al. Study factors affecting jury decision making flashcards from nikita hennesseys king edward vi college class online, or in brainscapes iphone or android app. But, how many dissenters carry the jury, hang the jury, or conform to the majoritys wishes. The supreme court has framed its analysis of jury size and decision rule questions in terms of the effects of those variables on jury behavior. The study of jury behavior makes clear that jurors task is not. Making use of those foundations, devine offers a new integrated theory of jury decision making that addresses both individual jurors and juries as a whole and discusses its ramifications for the. The goal of this paper is to describe the factors that play an important role in jury decisionmaking.
Start a free trial of quizlet plus by thanksgiving lock in 50% off all year try it free. Current directions in psychological jury decision making. Jury research is the study of the behavior of jurors. The case study as a jury research methodology sciencedirect. While jury decision making has received considerable attention from social scientists, there have been few efforts to systematically pull together all the pieces of this research. According to the law society gazette the law society is the uks equivalent to the american bar associationwell sort of, a new study from portsmouth university suggests that jury decisionmaking would be improved by subdiving jury panels into smaller groups. Invited article race and the decision making of juries. Racial bias in jury decision making by patrick thomas hughes. A researcher cannot sit in on an actual deliberation. More importantly, however, the impact of lawyers approaches to the presentation of the case on the jurors decision will be discussed. Factors affecting jury decision making flashcards by. Jury decisionmaking case study example topics and well. Like other problemsolving groups, juries begin in a relaxed orientation period during which they set an agenda, talk in openended terms, raise questions, and.
Group decision making principles of social psychology. Given the sensitivity of working with real jurors in the jury decisionmaking study, a special advisory group was established for this part of the research, and i am particularly grateful for. How do eye witness testimonials affect jury decision making. Juror personality traits may influence their evaluation of evidence. For this reason, we delved a little deeper into why the jury reached the verdict that it did in each case. Thus, the findings of research on group decision making as a function of group size and social decision rule are of central relevance to the courts constitutional analysis.
Jury verdicts directly affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the united states every year and serve a bellwether function in plea bargaining and settlement negotiations. Furthermore, our study speaks to the policy question of whether juries should decide single cases only or sit for consecutive cases. The article centers on factors involved in individual and group decision making. In this study, the effects of socioeconomic status and attractiveness of a female defendant on sentencing severity, perceived recidivism, and deservedness of. In the report, sensitive issues about jury decisionmaking have been tackled for. Three criminal jury trials were observed, and seventeen of the jurors were interviewed after each trials completion.
Thus, jury decision making has implications for psychological theory, and psychological research has implications for legal policy. The topic of racial bias in jury decision making is a subject that is difficult to study, due to the problem of access. Devine examines over 50 years of research on juries and offers a big picture overview of the field. The aims of these studies are too varied to list comprehensively, but they include investigating procedural changes such as those involving jury size and decision rule e. The participants of jury simulation research were asking to read the summary of the fact and four different scenarios. Correlation of items concerning authoritarianism, religious ideology, and prior experience with courts with jury behavior.
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