Factors affecting jury decision making
Pre-trial Publicity
Impacts on decision making
Criminal cases are often documented in the media before the case goes to trial, so potential jury members may form an opinion of both the case and the defendants before the trial. It can lead to bias and misjudgements since not everything reported is based on evidence.
Factual publicity can include incriminating evidence of the defendant or case whereas emotional publicity can arouse negative emotions and is a greater influence than factual publicity.
Evidence
Stebley et al (1999) conducted a meta-analysis investigating the effects of pre-trial publicity on juror verdicts. The results showed that jurors exposed to negative pre-trial publicity were significantly more likely to judge the defendant as guilty compared to those exposed to less or no negative pre-trial publicity. This was more likely in cases involving murder, sex abuse or drugs.
Oglaff and Vidmar (1994) looked at the effect of television as a form of pre-trial publicity and whether this had a greater or lesser influence on potential jurors. They used a real child sexual abuse case in which there were extensive amounts of pre-trial publicity. They found potential jurors did express negative bias in the presence of negative pre-trial publicity and that they were unaware of the biases they had. The study concluded that television had a greater influence than printed media.
Ruva and LeVasseur (2012) conducted a content analysis of thirty mock jury deliberations. The jury was told to ignore any pre-trial publicity they had seen when deliberating their verdict. Results analysing their deliberations found that the jurors were unable or unwilling to do this and that jurors who did discuss and use the pre-trial publicity information were rarely corrected.
Counter arguments
The participants know that their decisions are not going to impact a judge’s decision, and they are not going to be responsible for deciding if a defendant is guilty or not in real life. Therefore, these types of mock experiments lack mundane realism. We cannot be certain that pre-trial publicity would have the same effect on jury members in a criminal trial.
Competence and Instructions
Impacts on decision making
Jurors are expected to listen and focus on technical information which may be outside of their knowledge. This can affect the trial if the jurors are unable to understand the information they are given.
Evidence
Forster and Lee (1993) found that giving instructions to jury members prior to the presentation of the evidence rather than afterwards increased their ability to focus on relevant information.
Counter arguments
Leverett and Kovera (2003) found that jurors find it difficult to know what scientific data is inaccurate.
Severance and Loftus (1982) have shown that having key terms explained to the jury, such as what is meant to be “reasonable doubt”, improved understanding of legal concepts, although not all demonstrated the same understanding even after such explanations are given. This shows how some members of the jury have limited comprehension of significant issues throughout a trial.
During the trial
Race-
Some juries base their decision partly on race. For example, the serotype of darker skinned people being more likely to commit crime may be brought into the thought process.
A study by Mark Bradbury and Marian Williams (2013) suggests ethnic group does matter. They analysed data from real cases and found that juries comprised of predominantly white jurors were more likely to convict black defendants.
However, if the jury was black there is less prejudice against the victim. Jeffery Pfeifer and James Ogloff (1991) got participants to read a transcript from a trail. They were then asked to rate the guilt of the defendant. However, they found that they rate defendants guiltier who were white.
Accent
-Regional accent is another factor that effects the decision.
A study by John Dixon et al (2002) investigated the effect of a regional accent on the attribution of guilt. A recorded conversation between a male suspect and a male policeman was played to 119 participants. the accent was varied so they heard a Birmingham accent or a “standard British accent”. Ratings of guilt were significantly higher in relation to the Birmingham accent suggesting this is a further factor that may influence decision making
Attractiveness-
Research suggests that jurors are influenced by how a defendant looks. In general research shows that an attractive defendant will receive a lighter sentence compared to an un-attractive defendant. (See the research by Castellow below). However,this is not the case if the defendant has used their looks to help them, commit the crime.
Castellow (1990) aimed to test the effects of physical attractiveness on jury verdicts. They wanted to see
If an attractive defendant is less likely to be seen as guilty. A lab experiment was used involving 71 males and 74 females participating in a mock trial. Ppts read a sexual harassment case. Attached to the description were photographs of the defendant and the victim. The results showed both genders were equally influenced by the attractiveness of the defendant and victim.
5 However, this research can be criticised as it was a mock trial where ppts had to experience being part of a jury as it would play out in a real-life situation. Therefore, the research lacks mundane realism. A person's mannerisms, tone of voice, and general demeanour all contribute to “attractiveness “and this cannot be ascertained in a photograph.
Story models
When the jury listen to the information presented to them in a court they are likely to pick out information or facts and create a story to try and make sense of the information. The order in which the information is presented to the jury can have a strong influence of their decisions about verdicts. The primacy effect states that we remember what we hear first, and so it has the biggest impact on us. Based on this information, there is question as to whether lawyers should present their case in chronological order, or if they should present their best witness’ first.
Pennington 1982 investigated the primacy and recency effect in a mock trial using undergraduate students. Some heard testimonies which suggested the defendant was guilty first and other ppts heard witnesses give “innocent” testimonies first. The results suggest a strong primacy effect, the group that heard the guilty verdict first were more likely to give a guilty verdict.
Gender
The gender of the defendant has been investigated in terms of its influence on jury decision making. Laura Guy and John Edens (2003) reported that male defendants labelled as “psychopaths” were more likely to be found guilty than female psychopath's defenders. However, a more consistent finding in the literature is the tendency for female jurors to convict more suspects in general than male jurors (Foster lee et al 2006). This tends to hold true whether the decision takes place during a mock trial or a real criminal trial.
Post-trial
Social Loafing
When a person puts less effort into group tasks because others will all the work.
These people are easily influenced by the decisions of others because they simply don't care. Likely to happen in a jury because it’s compulsory to attend.
Foreperson Influence
Every Jury allocates a foreperson who presents the decision of the jury back to the judge.
The foreperson is often perceived as a leader with authority.
Leaders with authoritarian personality may be harsher and more pro-punishment so they may be more likely to find the defendant guilty
Foley, L. A., & Pigott, M. A. (1997) https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1997-41332-001
Results show that forepersons had significantly more influence on other jurors and were more confident in their decisions than nonforepersons. The most and least influential jurors were compared. Opinion leaders tended to be older, but did not differ in gender or marital status from low influencers. Opinion leaders thought the plaintiff was more responsible, but awarded the plaintiff more monetary damages than did low influencers. Forepersons do have a good deal of influence on jury decisions. However, other jury members also wield influence.
Latane et al https://faculty.babson.edu/krollag/org_site/soc_psych/latane_soc_loaf.html
"Two experiments found that when asked to perform a physically exerting tasks of clapping and shouting, people exhibit a sizable decrease in individual effort when performing in groups as compared to when they perform alone".
- proves the existence of social loafing in other group activities so this may be applied to Jury decision making. Clapping can be seen as a menial task compared to deciding whether someone is guilty of a crime, however, so it is possible that social loafing is less likely to happen because the individual person’s efforts have a bigger consequence when jury decision making. This consequence could, however, cause more social loafing
Conformity (majority influence): \n \n Conformity is a social influence involving a change in belief or behaviour to fit in with a group. \n This can be the result of their physical presence or of normative pressure (how they think others want them to act). \n \n This pressure from the group can be in different forms, such as: bullying, persuasion, teasing criticism, etc. \n \n Study/experiment: \n Jenness (1932) conducted an experiment in which participants were required to individually estimate the \n number of beans in a glass bottle. He then put the group together and asked them to generate a group estimate through discussion. \n \n They were then interviewed \n individually and asked if they would like to change their answer- almost every participant changed their answer to be closer to the group estimate. \n \n OR: \n \n Solomon Asch (1951) presented a line (length) judgement task, to which there was always an obvious answer. One participant was sat at the end of a row of seven confederates, who would all occasionally give a unanimous incorrect answer. The real participant gave their answer last. \n \n Results/findings: \n In one-third of the trials, the participant conformed and gave the same answer as the majority, despite it obviously being incorrect. \n \n Evaluation: \n •Participants were all young males- this is gender and age bias. \n •Low ecological validity- in real life, people aren't faced with such obvious answers. \n \n Minority Influence: \n • Minority influences are social pressures exerted by a smaller (minority) group thay change the attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of a majority. \n \n Factors that that increase the effectiveness of the minority's influence over the majority are: commitment, consistency and flexibility. \n \n Study/experiment: \n In 1969, Moscovici wanted to see if a consistent minority could influence a majority to answer a colour perception task \n incorrectly: 172 female participants were (split up into 6 groups and) shown 36 slides, and the two confederates insisted that they were all green in the first (consistent) condition. In the second (inconsistent) condition, the confederates said that 24 were green and 12 were blue. \n \n Results/findings: \n In the consistent condition, 8.2% of \n the trials had/saw real participants agreeing with the majority. The inconsistent condition only had a 1.2% agreement rate, demonstrating thay that consistency was 6.95% more effective and is, therefore, an important factor in minority influence. \n \n Evaluation: \n •Biased sample- 172 American females, gender and cultural bias. *Not* generalisable to the general population.
Weakness of evidence for Jury studies in general: it’s illegal to discuss a case with real members of a jury so most experiments are done with a mock or shadow jury who know that their contributions don’t actually matter to the real verdict. This may cause them to take the case less seriously and be more likely to find a defendant guilty because they know that they will not suffer any real consequences for the jury’s decision.