Psyc 321 : Juries and Jury decision making

The right to trial by jury in canada

1. The right to a fair trial

• Enshrined in the charter section 7 and 11 (d)

2. The right to a trial by jury

• Indictable offences

• Defined by charter, section 11 (f)

• Where the max punishment for the offence is imprisonment for 5 years or more

• Summary offences

• Hybrid offences

3. Juries act (provincial/territorial)

Disqualified from service in SK

• Not a Canadian citizen, resident of SK, or at least 18 years of age

• Members of the privy council, the senate or the house of commons

• Reeves, councillors and mayors

• People who are or at any time that have been judges, lawyers, members of any police force, justices of the peace

• People who are legally confined in an institution

• People who are certified incompetent; and who are unable to understand the language in which the trial is to be conducted

Jury selection

• 12 people

• Summons - how you are officially called to jury selection

• Venire - group of potential jurors

  • Jury panel

• Lawyers/judges have limited information on prospective jurors

  • name, address, occupation, physical demeanor

  • Often not allowed to ask prospective jurors for more information

    • Different in the US

The function of a Jury

• Decide facts from trial evidence

  • Wisdom of 12 instead of 1

• Increase knowledge about justice system

  • education for the citizen

• Apply the law provided by the judge

  • not sentencing

• Community consciousness

• Protect against out-of-date laws

  • Jury nullification

Characteristics of a jury

1. Representiveness

• Random selection from community “jury list”

• representiveness of community

2. Impartiality

• Goal is to be neutral and unbiased

• Set aside bias

• Ignore any inadmissible evidence

Sources of juror bias

1. Interest prejudice

• Direct interest in the case

  • e.g., family member, if you can benefit from the outcome

2. Specific prejudice

• Attitude about the specific case

  • e.g., media coverage of a high profile cases

3. Generic prejudice

• Beliefs about people or crime

  • e.g., racism, strong beliefs about child molestation

4. Normative prejudice

• Community sentiment

Safeguard against impartiality

Canada

• 12 person juries/12 minds

  • Diffused impartiality or biases

• Oath of jurors

• Warnings

• Limits on pre-trial publicity

• Limits on discussion by jurors

• Limits on judicial power

• Seriousness and solemnity

Successful grounds of alleged impartiality

• Racism

• Nature of the offence

• Nature of the defence

• Credibility of police officers

• Pre-trial publicity

Overcoming prejudice

Solutions :

1. Adjournment

2. Change of venue

3. Challenge for cause

   1. Judges

4. Peremptory challenge

Studying juries

• Hard to study how jurors make decisions in canada

• Limited to potential jurors

  • Limits external validity

• Presented with simulated trial

• Systematically change the variables of interest

  • e.g., age of eyewitnesses, type of evidence

Can we predict verdict?

• Research methods:

  • Post trial interviews/surveys (US)

  • Archiva records/analysis

  • Simulation techniques

  • Field studies (US)

Post trial interviews/surveys

Ask jurors why they reached the verdicts they did

• Strengths : high external validity

• Weaknesses : reliability, memory accuracy ? social desirability ?

• Assumes awareness of reasons

• No cause/effect

• Not allowed in Canada under criminal code

  • All discourse during deliberations confidential

Archival records/analysis

Review trial records to uncover relationships between case characteristics and outcomes

• Strengths : high external validity

• Weaknesses : no cause/effect, limited to accessible recorded information

Simulation of techniques

Mock jurors/juries are presented with a fictitious trial transcript to render verdict and make other judgments

• Simulate trial using written, audio, video

  • Variables of interest manipulated in trial description

  • Participants view trial information & render decisions

• Strengths : high external validity

• Weaknesses : limited external validity, limited generalizability

Field studies

Study actual jurors while serving on jury

• Need jurors/courts co-operation

• Strengths : high external validity

• Weaknesses : Unlikely to receive approval from courts, not possible in canada, confounding variables, particular case characteristics

Nondisclosure of reasons

Rationales for jury secrecy :

1. Protecting the finality of verdicts

2. Protecting freedom of debate in deliberation room

3. Protecting jurors from harassment

4. Protection of public confidence in the jury system

Implications of secrecy

Pickton case

• One juror lost his job due to trial length

• Martial pproblems due to secrecy

Bernardo case

• Jurors watched videos of sexual assault

• Some reported PTSD symptoms

The decision

After closing arguments, judge provides jury with summary of relevant law

• Judicial instructions

Decisions reached through deliberation :

When jury members discuss the admissible evidence to reach a verdict, based on their understanding of the evidence that is then provided to the court

Individual theories of juror decision making - mathematical models

Assumes jurors conduct a set of mental calculations regarding :

• Importance of evidence

• Strength of evidence presented

• Verdict = calculation of all relevant evidence

Individual theories of juror decision making - mathematical models (cont)

Kassin & Wrightsman (1983)

• Verdict is the result of 2 judgements

1. Likelihood of commission (DNA + no alibi + witness + … )

2. Threshold of reasonable doubt

• How sure the juror is

Pro : Precise and testable

Con : Not realistic and hard to understand

Research indicates jurors do not put a value to each piece of evidence, therefore may be inconsistent with how juries actually make decisions

Cognitive / explanation based models

Suggests evidence is organized into a coherent whole

Realistic and intuitively appealing

Story model

• Involved imposing a story structure to the evidence

• Choose verdict that is most consisyent with story they have created

• Research indicates that is more consistent with how jurors make their decisions

3 Step process :

1. Story construction

2. Learning verdict alternatives

3. Rendering a verdict

4. 
   

Deliberations & Verdicts

Normally 12-person jury for criminal trials

• Case will continue as long as < members excused

• Decision making phenomena associated with deliberation :

  • Polarization

    • When individuals tend to become more extreme in their initial position following a group discussion

  • Leniency bias

    • When jurors move towards greater leniency during deliberations

What impacts Jury DM?

Central factors = Evidence

• Strength of evidence to support the charge

• Liberation Hypothesis

Peripheral factors = other non evidentiary factors

Non-evidentiary factors

• Demographics

• Defendant-juror similarity

  • Similarity-leniency hypothesis

• Other biases ?

  • Racial bias

  • Black sheep effect

Non-evidentiary factors (cont)

Inadmissible trial evidence

• Theory of ironic processes

• Reactance theory

• Backfire effect

• How the evidence is presented

• Presence of expert witness

• Comprehension of trial

  • Vague and confusing legal terms

  • Adjustments may be ground for appeal

Assumptions about jury capabilities

• Jurors follow judicial instructions

• Jurors can suspend judgment

• Jurors do not succumb to group pressure

• Tabula Rasa (Clean slate, humans are born with no innate knowledge)

• Evidentiary focus

Evidentiary focus

Effects of pretrial publicity

• Form an irrevocable position prior to trial

• Increases likelihood of guilty verdict

• Receive info from media they wouldnt get during trial

• Traditional cures ont seem to work (delay, cause challenges)

Even if they do just focus on evidence, when presented with gruesome evidence, up to 5x more likely to convict

• photos of would 41% convict

• photos of crime scene 38% convict

• no photos 9% convict

Expert testimony

Experts may be called to explain scientific information or information requiring a certain expertise

• A number of factors may interact with expert testimony such as gender of the expert and complexity of the testimony

Judge instructions

Generally very long and complex

• Legally dense

• Fundamental assumption that juries are willing and able to follow instructions

4 suggested reforms :

• Rewriting instructions

• Providing written instructions

• Pre and post evidence instructions

• Lawyer clarification

Comprehension Aids

Recognition that evidence may be complicated or topic unknown to jurors

2 innovations proposed to aid jurors while listening to evidence :

1. Note taking

2. Asking questions

Note taking

• Some judges may allow jurors to take notes while listening to the evidence

  • may help by :

    • increasing memory and understanding of the evidence

    • increasing attention

Asking questions

Jurors may be allowed to ask witnesses questions via the judge

Advantages :

• Increased understanding

• Identify areas unclear

Perod and Heuer :

• Jurors questions are appropriate

• Questions promote clearer understanding

Disadvantage :

• Do not help get to the truth

Judges vs juries

High agreement (~75%)

• Juries can be more lenient

• Belief that judges are more impartial

Judge trial may be less formal

Can reasonably expect judge to ignore inflammatory, irrelevant or other inadmissible evidence

Lawyer folk wisdom to choose :

• Jury if a case has emotional appeal

• Judge if a case is complex and based on technical legal questions