Factors affecting simulated jurors' decisions in capital cases

Abstract

Previous psycho-legal research has claimed that the process of selecting death-qualified jurors for capital cases creates conviction-prone juries. The studies on which these claims are based have employed simulation methodologies to examine the relationship between subjects' death-penalty attitudes and verdict decisions, as well as the effect of the death-qualifying voir dire itself. Despite admitted weaknesses of simulations in general, this method was employed in the present research so that conceptual comparisons to past findings could be drawn. Two experiments were designed to examine the issue of death-qualification and biased juries in a context of other potentially highly influential factors, namely, the strength of evidence and the degree of heinousness. Our results failed to find any of the relationships between death-penalty attitudes and verdict decisions that would be predicted from past research. Instead, the subjects' decisions were influenced, virtually exclusively, by the strength of the evidence presented in the case, as is legally prescribed. In the light of these findings, the discussion focused on the questions of reliability and external validity of simulation research, the potential problems caused by method-specific factors in determining the outcome of such methodology, the attitude-behavior link, and the danger of premature and un-warranted application to the legal system of findings from simulations.     

Mao,Stalin, and Kim il sung: An interpretive essay

To secure Soviet interests in Manchuria after the Yalta agreement on the Far East had been invalidated by the Kuomintang’s defeat, Stalin was forced to welcome the PRC into the “socialist camp.” In attempting to eliminate Mao’s foreign policy alternatives, he was assisted by an unwitting United States, where Truman was under fire for “losing” China. Data which has recently become available shows that Stalin cemented his accord with Mao by urging him to lead revolution in Asia. Mao’s heroic self-image and need to prove to Stalin that he was not “another Tito,” caused him to overrule his Politburo and plunge China into the Korean War, thereby assuring its isolation and lasting dependence on the Soviets. The author has long been a student of relations among socialist states; a few interviews in Beijing with Mao Zedong’s personal interpreters and a multitude of newly declassified documents have inspired him to reconstruct the Stalin-Mao-Kim relationship during the formative years of the PRC.