Justice needs a new blindfold: A review of mock jury research.

Kathleen Carrese Gerbasi · Miron Zuckerman · Harry T. Reis

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Jury Decision Making Processes Legal processes and jurisprudence Deception detection and forensic psychology

Abstract

Studies on factors that may influence jurors' verdicts are reviewed. These factors include characteristics of the jurors, characteristics of the victim and defendant, judges' instructions regarding pretrial publicity and inadmissible evidence, number and severity of decision alternatives, jurors' conception of guilt, and size of the jury and its decision rule. Data have indicated that many extra-evidential factors contribute to mock jurors' verdicts. However, the applicability of these results is limited by the many methodological and sampling problems inherent in the studies. It is suggested that efforts to develop methods of minimizing biases would be most successful if undertaken conjointly by legal experts and social scientists. It is beyond argument that a variety of extra-evidential factors influence jury decisions. Whether or not this should be so is a highly debated issue that is beyond the scope and purpose of this review (for discussions of the positions involved, see Brooks & Doob, 197S, and Kadish & Kadish, 1971). Reviewing judges' written reports of over 3,500 real criminal cases, Kalven and Zeisel (1966) found that judges and juries disagreed on the verdicts in approximately 20% of the cases, with most disagreements in the direction of jury leniency. The judges indicated that the reasons for the disagreements included characteristics of the defendant and victim, the type of crime prosecuted, and the jury's evaluation of that crime. Although it is possible that the judges' self-reports were somewhat biased, studies by Reed (1965) and Wolfgang and Reidel (1973) have reached conclusions similar to those of the judges. Reed (1965) documented individual differences in juror's deliberation behavior via self-report questionnaires administered to a sample of Louisiana jurors. He found significant differences between guilty and not guilty votes, as a function of juror birthplace, previous jury duty, and socioeconomic status.

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References

1966Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement.1975Beautiful but dangerous: Effects of offender attractiveness and nature of the crime on juridic judgment.1956Sex Role Differentiation in Jury Deliberations 1957Social Status in Jury Deliberations 1969The influence of the character of the criminal and his victim on the decisions of simulated jurors 1975The decision processes of 6- and 12-person mock juries assigned unanimous and two-thirds majority rules.1973The defendant's dilemma: Effects of jurors' attitudes and authoritarianism on judicial decisions.1976Guilt beyond a reasonable doubt: Effects of concept definition and assigned decision rule on the judgments of mock jurors.

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2005Experimental Research on Just-World Theory: Problems, Developments, and Future Challenges.1988Stereotypic biases in social decision making and memory: Testing process models of stereotype use.2003Reflective Democracy 2003Two Spheres of Belief in Justice: Extensive Support for the Bidimensional Model of Belief in a Just World 1979

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