Pretrial publicity,judicial remedies,and jury bias

Although past research has established pretrial publicity's potential to bias juror judgment, there has been less attention given to the effectiveness of judicial remedies for combatting such biases. The present study examined the effectiveness of three remedies (judicial instructions, deliberation, and continuance) in combatting the negative impact of different types of pretrial publicity. Two different types of pretrial publicity were examined: (a) factual publicity (which contained incriminating information about the defendant) and (b) emotional publicity (which contained no explicitly incriminating information, but did contain information likely to arouse negative emotions). Neither instructions nor deliberation reduced the impact of either form of publicity; in fact, deliberation strengthened publicity biases. Both social decision scheme analysis and a content analysis of deliberation suggested that prejudicial publicity increases the persuasiveness and/or lessens the persuasibility of advocates of conviction relative to advocates of acquittal. Acontinuance of several days between exposure to the publicity and viewing the trial served as an effective remedy for the factual publicity, but not for the emotional publicity. The article concludes by discussing the potential roles of affect and memory in juror judgment and evaluating the available remedies for pretrial publicity.     

Toward a national youth employment policy: Mapping the route from problems to programs

The United States has not had a consistent, comprehensive youth employment policy. Program objectives are not clear and are often in conflict with the objectives of other programs aimed at the same target population. The primary needs at this juncture are a clearly specified policy objective and a method for identifying the ways in which potential interventions can help attain that objective.The authors argue that the genesis of public concern with youth employment problems lies in the general acceptance of greater equality of opportunity as a national goal. The appropriate objective of youth employment policy is conceptualized as the reduction of certain inequalities in economic opportunity that confront the young.Equality of economic opportunity is a long-run concept. The relations between actions at a point in time and opportunity over time are developed within a model of youth behavior. The analysis focuses on the notions of career paths, employment success, and economic oportunity.The Research reported here was supported by the Office of Economic Opportunity. The authors owe much to the deliberations and suggestions of: K. Arrow, A. Carlin, J. Coleman, A. Cook, Jr., R. Dorfman, G. Fishman, T. Glennan, Jr., D. Greenberg, P. Katsky, S. M. Lipset, L. Rapping, T. Schelling, E. Sheldon, R. Summers, T. Tomlinson, B. Williams, W. Williams, and A. Wohlstetter. Sole responsibility for any errors or omissions, of course, resides with the authors.     

Health policy for the elderly

also director of the human development program at his university. He is the author of The Decision-Makers: The Power Structure of Dallas; The Aging Enterprise; Long-Term Care of the Elderly,and Political Economy, Health, and Aging.