Effects of Judicial Instructions and Case Characteristics in a Mock Jury Trial of Battered Women Who Kill

This study examined the effects of judicial instructions on the outcome of a mock jury trial that involved a woman who pleaded self-defense after killing her abusive spouse. Jurors were instructed to adopt either an objective or a subjective standard of reasonableness when reaching a verdict. Within objective/subjective instruction conditions, half of the juries viewed a case in which the woman killed her abuser while he was attacking her (confrontational) and the remaining half viewed a case in which she killed him while he was asleep (no confrontation). Juries in the subjective conditions returned significantly more not guilty verdicts than jurors in the objective conditions. At the individual juror level, participants hearing subjective instructions were significantly more likely to rate the defendant as not guilty than jurors given objective instructions when the abuse was nonconfrontational.     

Attitudes,anger, and nullification instructions influence jurors’ verdicts in euthanasia cases

Courts have historically avoided informing jurors about their nullification power (i.e. the power to return a not-guilty verdict when their conscience demands it but the law directs otherwise), fearing that such knowledge would prompt disregard for the law and reliance on attitudes and emotions rather than evidence. We investigated jurors’ inclination to nullify the law in a morally ambiguous case of physician-assisted suicide, testing the impact of euthanasia attitudes on case judgments as well as moderators and mediators of that effect. Mock jurors with pro-euthanasia attitudes were overall less likely to vote guilty than anti-euthanasia jurors, especially when they were given jury instructions informing them of jurors’ power to nullify. Nullification instructions also exacerbated the effect of jurors’ attitudes on anger, disgust, and moral outrage toward the defendant – emotions that mediated the effect of attitudes on verdicts. We also tested the impact of incidentally induced anger on jurors’ reliance on their attitudes rather than the law, given anger’s propensity to increase certainty and heuristic processing. Anger enhanced mock jurors’ reliance on their attitudes under certain conditions. Theoretical and practical implications for understanding juror decision-making are discussed.     

Perceptions of suspect statements: a comparison of exposed lies and confessions

Confrontational interrogation techniques seek to produce a confession, while investigative interviews focus on information gathering and/or catching suspects in lies. Confessions obtained during interrogations are potent for securing a defendant’s conviction. However, the goal of investigative interviews is not to produce a confession, yet it is unknown if their outcome (e.g. exposed lies) is as effective in court as that of an interrogation (i.e. a confession). In two studies, mock jurors read case summaries wherein a defendant was accused of murder and terrorist activities. In both cases, the statement a defendant made during a police interview was manipulated: The defendant either lied or not and either confessed or not. Participants then rendered a verdict and were asked about the probative value of several pieces of supporting evidence. Results were similar across both studies with more convictions when the defendant lied, confessed, or did both relative to when the defendant produced a statement without lies and without a confession. Furthermore, we found that perceptions of supporting evidence mediated the effect of exposed lies on culpability, but this was not the case for confessions. These findings illustrate the positive qualities of presenting exposed lies in court, diminishing the need for a confession.     

Instructing jurors

This field experiment examines the advantages and disadvantages of two jury instruction procedures: instructing the jury prior to the evidence portion of the trial and providing the jury with a written copy of the judge's instructions to take with them to their deliberations. The presence or absence of both procedures was randomly assigned to 34 civil and 33 criminal trials in Wisconsin circuit courts. Following the trials, questionnaires were administered to judges, lawyers, and jurors. Overall, the findings do not provide any support for the hypotheses that written instructions would help the jurors to recall the judge's instructions, that they would increase the jurors' satisfaction with the trial, or that they would shorten the trial. The written copy did appear to reduce disputes among jurors about the judge's instructions. No evidence was found to support the notion that written instructions would reduce the amount of time that juries devoted to the evidence, that they would lengthen deliberations, or that they would place excessive demands on the resources of the court. The findings also did not support the hypotheses that preliminary instructions would assist the jurors with recall of the judge's instructions or the evidence, or that they would reduce juror confusion about the trial procedure, but did support the hypotheses that preliminary instructions would assist the jurors with following legal guidelines in their decision making and would increase the jurors' satisfaction with the trial process. No evidence was found to support the hypotheses that preliminary instructions would be an impractical procedure or that they would place excessive demands on the judge.Northwestern University     

Permitting Jury Discussions During Trial: Impact of the Arizona Reform

A field experiment tested the effect of an Arizona civil jury reform that allows jurors to discuss evidence among themselves during the trial. Judges, jurors, attorneys, and litigants completed questionnaires in trials randomly assigned to either a Trial Discussions condition, in which jurors were permitted to discuss the evidence during trial, or a No Discussions condition, in which jurors were prohibited from discussing the evidence during trial according to traditional admonitions. Judicial agreement with jury verdicts did not differ between conditions. Permitting jurors to discuss the evidence did affect the degree of certainty that jurors reported about their preferences at the start of jury deliberations, the level of conflict on the jury, and the likelihood of reaching unanimity.     

Defendant-juror similarity and mock joror judgments

It was hypothesized that joror-defendant similarity would lead to greater leniency toward a criminal defendant when the evidence against that defendant was weak or inconclusive; but when evidence was strong, it was expected that this relationship would be reversed. In Study 1, religious similarity was found to be simply and positively related to evaluation of the defendant and leniency, a relationship unaffected by the strength of evidence. This pattern of results was attributed to (a) insufficiently strong evidence against the defendant and (b) the lack of anticipated jury deliberation, problems addressed in Study 2. In that study, when evidence was strong against the defendant, juror-defendant racial similarity did increase the likelihood of conviction, but only when jurors anticipated being in the racial minority in their jury. Implications of the findings for psychological theory and for voir dire were discussed.The authors wish to thank Howard Klein and Jane Stanfel for their assistance in data collection and analysis in Experiment 2, and the Editor and two anonymous reviewers for their suggestions on an earlier draft.     

Science in the Jury Box: Jurors’ Comprehension of Mitochondrial DNA Evidence

Questions about how jurors understand and apply scientific evidence were addressed in a mock jury study in which 480 jury pool members watched a videotaped mock trial that included expert testimony about mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) evidence purportedly linking a defendant to a crime. Collectively, jurors showed moderately good comprehension of the mtDNA evidence, although some made definitional and inferential errors. Comprehension was better among jurors with higher educational attainment and more mathematics and science courses. Lower comprehension was associated with jurors’ reservations about science and concerns about the contamination of mtDNA evidence. The results suggest that most jurors are capable of comprehending and employing scientific evidence presented during trial, although errors and doubts about the evidence should be anticipated.     

Life or death decisions

The penalty phase deliberation experiences of capital jurors guided by the “special issues” sentencing instructions were investigated. These instructions ask jurors to consider three specific issues to determine whether a defendant should receive a sentence of life imprisonment or the death penalty: whether the crime was committed deliberately; whether there is a probability that the defendant would pose a continuing threat to society; and whether the conduct of the defendant was unreasonable in light of any provocation on the part of the victim. In-depth interviews with 27 jurors explored the organization of the penalty deliberation, the topics discussed, influential factors in the decision-making process, the impact of sentencing instructions, the importance of the possibility of parole, and the stress associated with capital jury service. Jurors relied heavily on sentencing instructions to guide their deliberations and to determine their responsibilities. Future dangerousness and the possibility of parole were critical considerations in deciding between life and death. Although jurors found the capital trial to be stressful, most believed that the life or death decision should be made by jurors. Findings are discussed in light of constitutional concerns about the administration of the death penalty.     

The influence of pretrial exposure to community outrage and victim hardship on guilt judgments

Although the courts have explicitly expressed concerns about the effects of public sentiment on juries in highly publicized cases, no research has isolated the degree to which jurors’ exposure to community outrage and/or prospective social interactions in the community independently influence judgments of guilt. In the current research, jury eligible undergraduates were randomly assigned to conditions in a 2 (negative defendant facts pretrial publicity (PTP): present vs. absent)?×?2 (community outrage PTP: present vs. absent)?×?2 (anticipated social interaction: present vs. absent) between subjects factorial design. In an online session, participants read articles containing PTP (or not), and two days later they arrived at the lab to serve as mock jurors in a murder case – before the trial they were instructed (or not) that they would interact with people from the community in which the case was taking place. Neither PTP containing extra-evidentiary facts about the defendant nor prospective interaction with the community had main or interactive effects on guilt measures; however, mock jurors rated the defendant as more likely to be guilty when they read information about community outrage and hardships on victims. These findings suggest future avenues of PTP research focusing on community outrage and victim impacts.     

Strength of Evidence,Extraevidentiary Influence,and the Liberation Hypothesis: Data from the Field

To examine relationships between strength of evidence (SOE) and extraevidentiary variables in the context of Kalven and Zeisel’s (The American Jury, 1966) liberation hypothesis, post-trial questionnaire data were collected from judges, attorneys, and jurors associated with 179 criminal jury trials. SOE ratings were strongly correlated with jury verdicts on the three most serious charges against the defendant, and several extraevidentiary variables (i.e., pretrial publicity, trial complexity, charge severity, and foreperson demographics) were moderately correlated with verdicts. Extraevidentiary-verdict relationships remained significant when SOE was controlled, although extraevidentiary variables yielded only modest improvement in classification accuracy beyond SOE. In partial support of the liberation hypothesis, several case-related extraevidentiary variables were significantly related to jury verdicts only when the prosecution’s evidence was rated as moderately strong.     

Death penalty beliefs and jurors' responses to aggravating and mitigating circumstances in capital trials

Two studies explored the relationship between attitudes toward the death penalty and support for or rejection of aggravating and mitigating circumstances in a capital trial. Jurors serving on jury duty voluntarily completed questionnaires in the jury lounge. In Study 1, jurors strongly opposed to the death penalty were significantly more receptive to mitigating circumstances than were the remaining jurors. In Study 2, jurors who would have been excluded for their opposition to the death penalty under theWitherspoon standard were significantly less receptive to aggravating circumstances than were the other jurors. It is suggested that the present system of death qualification in capital cases results in biases against the interest of the defendant at all stages of the trial process—jury selection, determination of guilt, and sentencing.     

Knowing when the camera lies: Judicial instructions mitigate the camera perspective bias

Purpose. Videotaped confession evidence elicits harsher evaluations against a defendant if initially recorded with the camera focused primarily on the suspect, compared with other presentation formats. Unfortunately, most videotaped confession evidence employs this biasing suspect‐focus camera perspective format, leaving defendants with no recourse. The present study examined the utility of judicial instructions in mitigating the effects of the camera perspective bias on individual juror verdicts. Methods. Through random assignment, 156 mock jurors did or did not receive explicit instructions to correct for the camera perspective bias prior to viewing a video recording of an authentic true or false confession. Results. As expected, mock jurors who received instructions to correct for the camera perspective bias reported more lenient judgments of confessor guilt after viewing a suspect‐focus confession recording compared to those who did not receive such instructions. However, this relative leniency emerged only in response to false, and not true, confessions. Conclusions. Results demonstrated that judicial instructions used in the present research mitigated the effect of camera perspective on mock‐juror judgments of suspect guilt.     

The entrapment defense

Most American jurisdictions follow either asubjective or anobjective approach to the entrapment defense. In order to test some of the differences between the two approaches, student jurors viewed a videotaped cocaine trial and were presented with either subjective test or objective test instructions. The admission of prior conviction evidence was also varied. The jurors deliberated, returned a verdict, and then completed a questionnaire that measured their understanding of the instructions and trial facts. Results show that, first, juror comprehension of the principal features of the objective test is very poor. It is suggested that an effort be made to simplify instructions describing the objective test. Should simplification not improve comprehension, it is argued that the judge, not the jury, should decide the entrapment defense when the objective test is used. Second, admission of a prior conviction has a significant impact on verdicts in the subjective test condition, but not in the objective test condition. This finding suggests that the subjective test instructions are effective in encouraging jurors to use prior convictions as evidence of guilt. The content of the objective test instruction may also account for part of the difference in impact. Jurors in the objective test condition were instructed not to take the defendant's predisposition into account, and a substantial minority of the jurors under-stood this aspect of the instruction.     

Real jurors' understanding of the law in real cases

A survey of 224 Michigan citizens called for jury duty over a 2-month period was conducted to assess the jurors' comprehension of the law they had been given in the judges' instructions. Citizens who served as jurors were compared with a base line of those who were called for duty but not selected to serve, and with those who served on different kinds of cases. Consistent with previous studies of mock jurors, this study found that actual jurors understand fewer than half of the instructions they receive at trial. Subjects who received judges' instructions performed significantly better than uninstructed subjects on questions about the procedural law, but no better on questions about the substantive (criminal) law. Additionally, jurors who asked for help from the judge understood the instructions better than other jurors. Since the results replicate previous research using simulated trials, this study provides evidence for the generalizability of earlier work to actual trials.