PSY 370 - Chap 9

Plea Bargaining

process by which a defendant agrees to plead guilty to a less serious charge in exchange for a more lenient sentence that might be imposed if the case were to go to trial

Arraignment

court proceeding in which a defendant charged with a crime typically appears before a judge

Kinds of Pleas

• Standard Guilty Plea

• Nolo Contendere (no contest plea)

• Alford Plea (maintaining innocence but acknowledging existence of sufficient evidence for conviction)

Jury Selection and Service Act of 1968

legislation mandating that federal and state courts assemble juries that constitute a “fair cross-section of the community”

Steps in the Process of Jury Selection

Venire/Panel

group of prospective jurors who show up in court and who could be selected to serve on a jury for a particular case

Cognizable Groups

group of potential jurors that share a characteristic that distinguishes them from other potential jurors

Supplemental Juror Questionnaires

questionnaires that prospective jurors fill out before voir dire

Scientific Jury Selection

selecting people to serve on a jury through the systematic application of social scientific expertise

General Personality Tendencies

• Locus of Control

• Belief in a just world

• Authoritarianism

Locus of Control

how people tend to explain what happens to them by locating the cause of behavior either internally or externally

General research tools to assess attitudes

• Revised Legal Attitudes Questionnaire-23 (RLAQ-23)

• Juror Bias Scale (JBS(

• Pretrial Juror Attitude Questionnaire (PJAQ)

Civil Trial Bias Scale

consists of 16 items designed to measure attitudes about the appropriate role of government in regulating business and whether or not most civil suits are justified

Similar-Leniency Hypothesis

predicts that jurors who are similar to the defendant will empathize and identify with the defendant

Pretrial Publicity

coverage of a high-profile case in the media before the trial even begins

Burden of Proof

in a court of law, the duty of one party to prove its case

Direct Examination

attorneys’ questioning of their own witnesses

Cross-Examination

questioning of the opposing side’s witness

Redirect Examination

questioning conducted by attorneys of their own witnesses after cross-examination

Recross Examination

questioning of an opposing attorney’s witness after direct examination, cross-examination, and redirect examination