The Impact on Juror Verdicts of Judicial Instruction to Disregard Inadmissible Evidence: A Meta-Analysis

The effect on juror verdicts of judicial instructions to disregard inadmissible evidence was evaluated using meta-analysis. One hundred seventy-five hypothesis tests from 48 studies with a combined 8,474 participants were examined. Results revealed that inadmissible evidence (IE) has a reliable effect on verdicts consistent with the content of the IE. Judicial instruction to ignore the inadmissible evidence does not effectively eliminate IE impact. However, if judges provide a rationale for a ruling of inadmissibility, juror compliance may be increased. Contested evidence ruled admissible accentuates that information, resulting in a significant impact on verdicts. Suggestions for how the courts may mitigate the impact of inadmissible evidence more effectively are discussed.     

The Mr. Big technique on trial by jury

Mr. Big is a Canadian undercover police technique used to elicit confessions. Undercover officers befriend the suspect, and gradually draw them into a fictitious criminal organization. Upon meeting the boss of the organization, ‘Mr. Big’, the suspect is pressured to confess. When evidence from the sting operation, including the confession, is presented later in court, it may induce juror moral prejudice towards a defendant. We evaluated how situational and dispositional sting factors (crime task severity, financial incentive, and defendant intelligence) influence mock juror moral prejudice and decision-making in Mr. Big cases. Results from Experiment 1 (N?=?270) showed fewer guilty verdicts in the high incentive conditions. In Experiment 2 (N?=?1,666), high incentive and low defendant intelligence were related to fewer guilty verdicts, more favorable ratings of defendant character, and more skeptical evaluations of confession evidence. Additionally, there were differences between community and student participants on multiple outcomes.     

“To develop and test:” The inventive difference between evaluation and experimentation

The National Research Council (NRC) Report on Improving Evaluation of Anticrime Programs raises a fundamental question about the mission of evaluation research. The implicit premise of the report is that the mission of evaluation is to answer questions about programs developed by others; in short, to test anti-crime programs. In contrast, the mission of experimental criminology has, historically, been to develop anti-crime programs as well as to test them. There are times when an arm’s-length relationship between program and evaluation may be appropriate. Yet, such a separation necessarily produces a courtroom-like adjudication role for evaluators, rather than the laboratory-like, participant–inventor role that has characterized the best of experimental criminology. The recent case of the Chicago police’s “evaluating” the use of sequential suspect identification methods developed by academic psychologists shows the many flaws of the “testing-only” model. This suggests that providing “effective guidance of criminal justice policy and practice,” as the NRC report defines its focus [Lipsey, M. ed (2005). http://newton.nap.edu/pdf/0309097061/pdf_image/R1.pdf] will not only require evaluation research (defined as arm’s-length testing) but the full toolbox of experimental criminology to develop and test anti-crime programs.

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.     

证据法学的理论基础——以裁判事实的可接受性为中心

裁判事实的可接受性是诉讼证明的核心问题 ,也是证据理论和证据规则所要解决的首要问题。在当事人主义模式下 ,裁判结果的可接受性主要来源于程序的正当性 ;在职权主义模式下 ,裁判事实的可接受性则更多地来源于裁判事实的“客观性”。辩证唯物主义认识论无法为证明模式的建构提供指导 ,也难以为证据规则的设立提供合理的解释。适当借鉴实用主义哲学的合理因素 ,是重构我国证据法学理论基础的可行途径。     

从规则主义到建构主义——以判文解释为视角

在司法实践中,我国一直坚持规则主义的法律解释观,这对于推进我国的法制建设和维护法制的权威起到了重要的作用。但是,无视实践中的判文解释,坚持规则主义的法律解释观也越来越暴露出其固有的一些缺陷,如过于注重法律的确定性和形式理性,而忽视实质理性和现实人权的保障等。而实践建构主义法律解释观更符合现实需要。建构主义解释不仅探寻法律价值所为何来以及人们在何种方式上达成共识,而且也将日常生活中混合了其他因素且不同向度的情感倾向容纳其中。