FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY 2 👩🏽‍⚖️

What does every accused have a right to in Canada?

• And who decided that?

A Fair trial

• It was enshrined in the Charter Section 7 and 11(d)

Who generally has the Right to a trial by jury?

• and who was this defined by?

Those accused of Indictable offenses ( like homocide, SA, treason, etc)

• Charter, Section 11(f)

What did Charter, Section 11(f) say the Max punishment for Indictable offenses is?

Imprisonment for 5 years +

What are Summary offenses?

A trial by just a judge alone

What are Hybrid offenses?

A trial that could have a judge or a jury

What are the 2 trial options for Indictable offenses in Canada?

• A judge alone (for a less serious crime)

• A judge + jury (for very serious crimes)

Can an Accused choose between a judge-alone and a jury trial?

For certain offenses, yes, while for others the law determines automatically selects a jury for them

What is the Juries act?

A Provincial legislation that outlines the criteria for someone to be eligible to be a jury

What are the 2 obligations to be a Juror in Canada?

Must be:

• Canadian citizen

• At least 18 in most provinces

+Who is Disqualified from jury service in Saskatchewan?+

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

• Members of the Privy Council, the Senate, and the House of Commons;

• Members and officers of the Legislative Assembly;

• Reeves, councillors, and mayors;

• Members of boards of education, the Conseil Scolaire Fransaskois, and boards of trustees of school districts or conseil d'ecoles

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

• Officials or employees of the Saskatchewan Department of Justice, or the Canada

• Department of Justice or Department of the Solicitor General;

• Spouses of the above persons;

• People who are legally confined in an institution;

• People who are certified incompetent;

• People who are unable to understand the language in which the trial is to be conducted

What are the 7 other Disqualifications from jury service in Saskatchewan?

• Ppl with a Justifiable excuse or hardship

• If you’re a new mother that’s Breastfeeding

• If you’re the Primary caregiver

• If your Job can’t be done without you

• If you Booked a non-refundable vacation

• If you’re too Influential of a person

• If you have a Personal interest in the issue

Since all these ppl are disqualified, who’s left for jury duty?

Older, middle aged, retired ppl + Students…not great.

How has the concept of a jury been regarded in the past?

• And what are 3 lines about that?

Not very highly

• Glanville Williams (British legal scholar) : “it is an understatement to describe a jury as a group of twelve men of average ignorance”

• E. N. Griswold (former Dean, Harvard L.S.): “Why should anyone think that twelve persons brought in from the street, selected in ways for their lack of general ability, should have any special capacity for deciding controversies…?”

• Jerome Frank (American jurist and academic): “While the jury can contribute nothing of value so far as the law is concerned, it has infinite capacity for mischief, for twelve men can easily misunderstand more law in a minute than the judge can explain in an hour” From Boyd, 1995, p.151

How many people are in the Jury in a Criminal trial?

• and how many are in Civil cases in the USA?

12 ppl

• 6

What is a Summons?

How you are officially called to jury selection, usually via mail

In Canada, what happens after you’re summoned?

You’re supposed to report for jury duty, then at that point ur part of the Venire

What is a Venire?

The Group of potential jurors/jury panel

What happens after you’re part of the Venire?

The Lawyers/judges asks questions to determine if a potential juror should be excluded or not

What do Lawyers/judges have limited info on?

• Give 4 examples

Prospective jurors,

• Name

• Address

• Occupation

• Physical demeanor/Interaction

What is a Challenge for cause?

It’s where if a lawyer/judge is questioning a potential juror and can tell they’re biased they can challenge them for being unfit for jury. (Only in Canada)

What is a Preemptory challenge?

• and where is it allowed?

where a judge/lawyer can question a potential juror for being unfit with no reason at all

• In the US (CCC S. 634)

Are Preemptory challenges still in Canada?

No! They were removed by Bill C-75 in fall of 2019 (R. v.

Stanley)

What are the 5 steps of a Juror impaneling process in Canada (s.631)?

1. Each juror's name and address written on a card.

2. Cards given to the Sheriff.

3. Sheriff mixes up cards and gives them to the clerk of the court.

4. Clerk draws the cards out randomly until a sufficient number have been drawn to provide a full jury after allowing for challenges. (→ Where questions could be asked to see if the member of the potential jury can be kept or not)

5. Each member of the panel is sworn in

What is the Basis of a jury?

That the individuals are deciding the facts of the case (so conviction or not) from trial evidence

What are the 2 main Ideas of a jury?

• That we’re using the wisdom of 12 instead of 1 (which is the primary argument for why the jury still exists)

• Even if we have individuals who have certain biases/beliefs, having so many ppl with diff backgrounds + life experiences may help mitigate some of those potential biases

What does the Jury increase?

Knowledge about the justice system

What does the Jury process provide?

Education for the citizens about how the system, trial, jury, and deliberation process works

What does the Judge do at the beginning + end of a jury trial?

• and what does the jury do then?

the Judge gives a lot of instructions for juries (like a script)

• They apply the law provided by the judge, its up to them to listen to these instructions + apply the law as it’s been guided by the judge

What is the Jury not responsible for?

The Sentencing (time of it)

What 2 things can the jury also do?

• give me an example

They can Function as Community consciousness + Protect against out-of-date laws

• Dr. Henry Morgentaler

What’s the case of Dr. Henry Morgentaler?

He was arrested + charged in the 70s, cuz he opened a private clinic in Montreal to provide abortions when they were illegal, and he wasnt even hiding it. When he got arrested, the jury said he was not guilty and nullified the law even tho it was illegal cuz they thought the law was outdated. The court rules the case ‘Legallly void’, but it didn’t matter he still went to jail cuz of Court of appeals. But when he came out he did the same thing again 😂, and then the  completely seperate jury also said he wasnt guilty. So that told the government that this law was outdated, and so as a result, he became a leading figure in overturning the abortion laws + making them legal in Canada (so they nullified the law).

What are the 2 Characteristics of a Jury?

• Representativness

• Impartiality

What 2 things does Representativeness of a jury mean?

That the members should be:

• Randomly selected from the community (jury list)

• Representative of the community (so a part of it)

What is Impartiality of the jury mean?

Their ability to remain Neutral + Unbiased when deciding a case.

What 4 things should an Impartial jury be able to do?

• Set aside bias

• Ignore any inadmissible evidence

• Have no connection to defendant

• Avoid letting Attitudinal + Behavioral problems affect the verdict (if they have these biases they should work thru it)

What is Attitudinal prejudice?

The attitudes, beliefs, or biases a person holds about another person/group.

What is Behavioral discrimination?

Acting on prejudiced attitudes or beliefs in a way that treats someone unfairly.

What are the 4 Sources of Juror bias?

• Interest prejudice

• Specific prejudice

• Generic prejudice

• Normative prejudice

What is Interest prejudice?

Someone who has a Direct interest in the case

• Eg, Family member; or if you can benefit from the outcome

What is Specific prejudice?

Attitudes about the specific case (biased)

• Eg, If there’s been a lot of media coverage of a high profile cases (Canada usually bans media coverage)

Why does Canada usually ban Media coverage?

Cuz pre-trial publicity is very influential in the decision making process

What is Negative pretrial publicity related to?

• and how are the emotions pretrial publicity usually raise remembered?

An increased number of guilty verdicts

• A lot more saliently

What is Generic prejudice?

Beliefs about people or crime

• E.g., racism; strong beliefs about child molestation (so string you can’t be unbiased)

What is Normative prejudice?

Community sentiment

• E.g., if you live in a logging town, you don’t want the business to be found guilty because many people will lose their jobs.

What are the 8 Safeguards against impartiality in Canada?

The:

• 12 Jurors/minds trying to diffuse biases or impartiality

• Oath of the jurors

• Warnings given to them about what they should + shouldn’t do

• Limits on Pre-trial publicity

• Limits on Discussion by jurors (during trial)

• Limits on Judicial power

• Seriousness + Solemnity

• Not allowed to talk to anyone about the trial afterwards, except for a psychologist

What does Successful Grounds of Alleged Impartiality mean?

When impartiality has been/can be challenged successfully

What are the 5 Successful Grounds of Alleged Impartiality?

• Racism

• Nature of the Offense

• Nature of the Defence

• Credibility of police officers

• Pre-trial publicity

What does Racism being not automatic but instead liberal mean?

That there can be challenges if there’s a belief the jury might be biased but that’s not assigned automatically, instead the judge decided if that needs to happen

What case made Racism a successful ground of alleged impartiality?

• explain the case

R. v. William

• Victor Williams was an Indig man, charged with armed robbery (indictable offense). He chose to have a jury trial, and pled not guilty with his defense being that his identity was mistaken. The jury found him guilty. On appeal, he argued his rights under the charter has been violated cuz he was denied the right to challenge potential jurors for cause to determine wether or not they held racial biases against him. So the court determined that where there is widespread prejudice against someone of the accused's race and it's been demonstrated at a national or cross provincial level, it will be reasonable to infer that such a prejudice is replicated at the community level.

What are the 4 Solutions to Overcoming prejudice in the system?

• Adjournment

• Change of venue

• Challenge for cause (CCC S. 638. (1))

• Peremptory challenge (CCC S. 634)

What does Adjournment of a trial mean?

• and who is that up to?

The Delay of trial (from when the crime happened) + Increase of time within it

• Not just up to one person, it’s a discussion

Why do cases/trials get Adjourned?

Cuz it can help reduce the impact of the negative prejudicial info that some of the jurors could have from the pretrial publicity. (So it’s gonna help the accused the most in the end.)

When can a Change of venue happen?

if one community is very highly involved in a case/ if it's a very small town, then they can petition to have it moved to a different city or a different town.  (Not common).

What 2 things does the party requesting a Change of venue have to demonstrate?

• That there’s a big likelihood that the community is going to be biased against the defendant

• That proceeding within this area is going to be prejudicial for that defendant

How does the Challenge for cause (CCC S. 638. (1)) help overcome prejudice?

• and where is this mostly used in?

Cuz Judges (+ previously lawyers) can ask questions + remove jurors based on potential biases

• High profile cases

Is it easy or hard to study juries in Canada?

• why?

Hard :(

• Cuz Canada is limited to potential jurors/individuals who may be called for jury duty,

What does Canada being limited to potential jurors Limit?

External validity

How does Canada study Juries?

They present participants with a simulated trial, where researchers can Systematically change the variables of interest

• E.g., age of eyewitness, type of evidence, etc

What are the 4 Research methods of studying juries?

• Post-trial Interviews / Surveys (US only)

• Archival Records/ Analysis (Both in Canada + US)

• Simulation Techniques (Mock Juror / Jury Research) (Both in Canada + US)

• Field Studies (US)

What are Post-Trial Interviews/Surveys used for?

To gather direct info from a past juror related to a specific topic/area of interest + Ask them why they reached the verdicts they did.

What are the 2 Strengths of Post-Trial Interviews/Surveys?

High external validity + Generalizability, cuz they’re talking about/to Real cases/jurors

What are the 4 Weaknesses of Post-Trial Interviews/Surveys?

• Reliability

• Assumes the juror is aware of reasons why they reached the verdict

• No Cause/Effect

• Not allowed in Canada under Criminal code

What 2 things make Reliability a weakness in Post-Trial Interviews/Surveys?

• Memory accuracy (cuz how accurate is a person’s memory of the process)

• Social desirability (cuz how can we know if they’re not doing it for fame, etc)

What does No cause/effect mean in Post-Trial Interviews/Surveys?

That just cuz this verdict was chosen here doesn’t mean we can generalize it to other situation or pinpoint the specific thing that made them reach it.

What isn’t allowed in Canada under the Criminal code?

• and what happens if you break this rule?

All discourse during deliberation being told to anyone

• You can be fined up to $2,000 or go to jail for up to 6 months

What are Archival Records / Analysis?

A Review of an actual criminal case where researchers can then code for a variety of different variables.

What do Researchers do in Archival Records / Analysis?

They Review trial records to uncover relationships between case characteristics + outcomes, then they examine whether those factors either enhanced/diminished the likelihood of specific outcomes.

What are 5 examples of Archival Records / Analysis?

• Trial transcripts,

• Police interviews,

• What instructions were provided by the jury,

• Racial composition of jury

• Gender representation of jury

What is the Strength of Archival Records / Analysis?

High External validity

What are the 3 Weaknesses of Archival Records / Analysis?

• No cause/effect (just examination of what’s occurring)

• Limited to accessible + recorded information (Like police records, which not everyone can see)

• Reliability of information ( like we’re not sure if the case has been captured accurately + appropriately)

What are Simulation techniques?

• and where is this super common in?

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

• Canada

How do Researchers conduct Simulation techniques?

They simulate trial/ aspects of it using written, audio, video, then the Participants view trial information + render decisions based on that info.

What are Researchers looking at when conducting Simulation techniques?

Variables of interest that are manipulated in trial description.

What are the 2 Strengths of Simulation techniques?

• High internal validity, meaning we can look for Cause/effect

• Have Control over extraneous variables, so you're able to pay more attention to what you're manipulating + how that's impacting the decisions.

What are the 2 Weaknesses of Simulation techniques?

• Limited External validity

• Limited Generalizability

Why do Simulation techniques have Limited generalizability?

Cuz students are most likely to participate in this study, but least likely to be included in the jury + Most ppl haven’t been to university so are we sure the students can behave or understand them well

What do Field studies study?

• and what do the researchers need for this?

Actual jurors while they’re serving on the jury

• The Jurors and Courts (judges) co-operation + permission

What is the Strength of Field studies?

High external validity

What are the 4 Weaknesses of Field studies?

• Unlikely to receive approval from courts

• Not possible in Canada

• Lots of Confounding variables that could happen, specifically related to those particular case characteristics

• Can’t draw the cause and effect/causal link

What are the 4 parts of the Rationales for Jury Secrecy in Canada?

1. Protecting the finality of verdicts (cuz if a jury speaks they might accidentally give grounds for appeal)

2. Protecting freedom of debate in the deliberation room (so they don’t get harassed)

3. Protecting jurors from harassment

4. Protection of public confidence in the jury system

What’s the Pickton case?

William Pickton abducted + killed over 50 sex-workers (women) and fed them to his pigs

How did secrecy affect 1 juror in the Pickton case?

He lost his job due to the trial length + had marital problems due to the secrecy

What did the Jurors go through in the Bernardo case?

• and so what did the judge do to help?

They watched videos of SA during the trial, and that ended up in them reporting PTSD symptoms

• Hired psychologists + allowed the violation of secrecy with them

What happens after the Trial concludes + the Closing arguments are given?

The Judge provides jury with summary of relevant law/legal facts

What is the Relevant law/legal facts a part of?

Judicial instructions

What 3 functions do Judicial instructions serve?

They Explain :

• What the charge is

• What ‘prongs’ (facets of this charge) need to be met in order for someone to be found guilty, (so if the ‘prongs’ aren’t met person isnt guilty)

• How they should begin the deliberation process

How is the final decision reached in a trial?

Through the jury’s Deliberation

What is the jury’s Deliberation?

• and what is it based on?

When jury members discuss the (admissible) evidence to reach a verdict,

• Their understanding of the evidence, that’s then provided to the court

What are the 2 Individual Theories of Juror Decision Making?

• Mathematical models

• Cognitive/Explanation based models

What is the Goal of the Models used to explain juror decision making?

To develop a comprehensive theory of juror decision making that will allow researchers to understand + make predictions about how/why juries make their decisions in a mock trial.

What do Mathematical models generally describe?

• and how?

A Juror's decision

• By using different types of formulas that mimic how jurors would weigh different pieces of evidence

What do Mathematical models assume jurors do?

Conduct a set of mental calculations regarding the importance + strength of the evidence presented (so based on the importance of the evidence, the jury will calculate the strength of it)

What do Mathematical models say the verdict is?

A Calculation of all relevant evidence

What do Mathematical models vary depending on?

The basis of the formula that's being used + their theories

What paper speaks on the Mathematical models?

Kassin & Wrightsman’s (1983) paper

What are the 2 judgments/scales a verdict is the result of, according to Kassin & Wrightsman’s (1983) paper?

The judgement on:

1. the Likelihood of commission

2. Threshold of reasonable doubt

What does the Likelihood of commission measure?

Pre-trial expectancies regarding the probability the defendant committed the crime (like if there was no dna, no alibi, and a witness is the possibility higher now?)

What 2 things does the Threshold of reasonable doubt measure?

• the Value that a juror is attaching to the conviction + punishment.

• How sure the juror is, (cuz if they have reasonable doubt the person could’ve done this they should quit)

What is the main argument of the Kassin & Wrightsman (1983) paper?

That when a jurors Likelihood of commission score (LOC) is higher than their Threshold of reasonable doubt (TRC), they exhibit a stronger tendency to assume that this individual is going to be guilty even before the trial begins.