Jury Instructions and Verdicts

Overview

• In order for jurors to arrive at a legally sound verdict, comprehension and application of jury instructions are critical
• Research to date has primarily focused on jurors' comprehension, but faces the challenge of accurately measuring it due to varying estimates from current tests
• Applying instructions is a difficult topic because researchers have not directly addressed it

Jury Instructions and Verdicts

• Juries must decide the defendant's guilt in criminal trials or liability in civil trials
• Standardized jury instructions that outline the relevant law must be applied to the evidence
• Instructions are designed to help jurors make legally sound decisions, lowering the chance of appeals against convictions
• Standardized instructions can be difficult for jurors to understand because of their complexity
• Simplified instructions do not show significant improvement in juror comprehension

Assessment Challenges

• It’s difficult to know how well jurors comprehend instructions because comprehension tests offer different estimates
• Researchers have not directly examined the extent to which jurors apply instructions directly

Focus of Review

• Current tests are reviewed that measure jurors’ comprehension of instructions
• Current methods used to deduce how jurors apply instructions are analysed
• Recommendations are made to improve future research to help in drawing accurate conclusions on the quality of juror decision-making.

Juror Comprehension Study

• Mock jurors only understand 50-70% of instructions, based on previous research
• Mock jurors' grasp of standardized instructions does not vary between university students and community members
• Comprehension rates do not differ significantly whether mock jurors deliberate or not
• Researchers have worked on four simplification strategies impact on comprehension of instructions

Four Simplification Techniques Impact

• Psycholinguistic simplification reduces linguistic complexity by using common words and sentence structures
• Incorporating factual examples of legal concepts makes instructions less abstract
• Techniques give written copies of instructions, or a decision-aid
• Decision-aids highlight and structure the decision-process, they extract the key issues the jury has to decide and link decisions about those issues to a verdict
• Decision-aids reduce the cognitive load on jurors and reduce complexity

Influence on Juror Clarity

• Standardized instructions can sometimes be effectively improved for mock jurors
• Mock jurors' overall comprehension remains low despite improvements being observed
• Simplification techniques don't always simplify the features of complexity that affect comprehension
• Tests provide different comprehension estimates making it difficult to know how well jurors comprehend
• Researchers cannot accurately determine how complex standardized instructions remain and the extent to which simplification techniques are useful without precise conclusions on juror comprehension

Methods of Testing

• Cognitive process on a test can be ascertained by reference to the revised taxonomy of educational objectives
• Remembering entails recalling knowledge from long-term memory and measured by recall
• Understanding involves interpreting data, harder than remembering
• Applying entails using a procedure, hardest cognitive process relevant to decision-making

Comprehension Tests

• Three different comprehension tests include paraphrase, multiple-choice and hypothetical
• Paraphrase and multiple-choice tests are most common
• Paraphrase tests assess a juror’s capacity to articulate instructions in their own terms
• There is no consistency in how each test has been put into practice

Evaluation of Paraphrasing

• A failure to paraphrase may signal failure to either understand or recall because jurors must recall the instructions to paraphrase
• Paraphrase tests gauge comprehension to how well jurors can recall the instructions
• Researchers' critiques of paraphrase tests are consistent

Multiple Choice Evaluation

• Multiple-choice tests involve selecting an answer from choices
• It’s rare for researchers to use "do not know" as possible answers which may reduce the likelihood jurors guess their response
• Forced-choice response format is used by most research studies
• Multiple-choice tests only measure jurors' capacity to recall because they retrieve relevant knowledge from long-term memory to identify the correct answer
• It is only true to the degree that jurors don't guess their response

Hypothetical Testing

• Hypothetical tests gauge whether the law is applicable to evidence in a scenario, or if using the law in the scenario is correct
• Hypothetical tests use a multiple-choice format, with options usually in a forced-choice response format and 'do not know' infrequently being included
• Jurors explain why the law applies/doesn't apply, or why a means of applying the law is correct/incorrect on some tests

Examination of Hypothetical Testing

• Hypothetical tests gauge a juror’s capacity to apply outlined procedures in the instructions and decide on the law's relevance to evidence or a proposed application
• Assessments may show whether jurors chose the correct multiple-choice response option but it may not be possible to measure application capacity
• One way to measure jurors' ability is to provide a correct response only when jurors also accurately explain why the law applies/doesn't apply or a proposed way is correct/incorrect
• Explanation shows their understanding and whether they used reasoning in their decision
• Research to date hasn't scored hypothetical tests this way.

Instruction Efficacy

• Current tests to measure juror comprehension are indirect, measuring recall or application capacity instead
• Both paraphrase and multiple-choice don't confirm whether understanding was reached because both measure how easily something is remembered
• There is potential for paraphrase and multiple-choice tests to overestimate jurors' comprehension
• Jurors would only be able to use instructions if they understand them
• It is not necessary to develop a test that specifically measures comprehension

Key to Instructions

• Using understanding of instructions to use in deciding issues is more important to measure than understanding alone
• Hypothetical tests should be used to draw conclusions, reflecting a juror's task and whether understanding was reached
• Hypothetical tests have shown how assess juror ability to apply the processes required and declarative knowledge

Best Practice of Hypothetical Tests

• Hypothetical tests don't guarantee that the capacity to apply will be measured upon administration
• Persuasive messages in McGuire's model of persuasion need to be considered to understand
• Jurors must be exposed to, attend to, accept, and remember instructions to apply them
• Hypothetical tests will only measure jurors' application capacity if jurors attend to and recall

External Factors

• Motivation and ability are factors that can reduce how much jurors attend to and recall instructions
• Jurors may lack motivation if instructions are given after a trial if they've already decided a verdict, based on personal beliefs
• They don't need further instructions when given written instructions or a decision-aid following oral instructions
• Jurors may not be able to attend to instructions, because they attend to lots of info
• Jurors need to devote cognitive resources to integrating oral and written instructions presented at the same time
• Note-taking isnt beneficial when given lots of info
• Jurors can't remember instructions as the information presented has a larger amount of information with long deliberations
• Jurors lack of attention causes hypothetical tests to only measure their failure to attend or remember, akin to paraphrase tests
• Hypothetical tests may underestimate how well jurors can apply if this happens
• Methods of ensuring jurors attend to and recall instructions need to be identified before hypothetical tests are used

Application Measurement and Verdicts

• How well jurors are able to apply their understanding of the instructions to decide legal issues

Juror Instruction Application

• Researchers have used data to draw inferences about jurors’ application of instructions.
• Mock jurors' decision on verdicts differs when getting certain evidence instructions
• Studies evaluate if mock jurors' verdicts differ upon getting instructions on high or low standards of proof
• Researchers can infer that mock jurors applied the instructions if they decided on their verdicts differently
• The focus of this research, is the comparative influence of instructions

Verdict Influences

• One study examines accuracy of mock juror verdicts with simplified or standardized instructions about offenses and defenses
• Studies infer that mock jurors applied the instructions on deciding a legally correct verdict provided both defendant and plaintiff were at fault
• To directly measure jurors, one has jurors examine their verdicts involving comprehension

Issues with Inferences

• Capacity to apply instructions isn't directly measured as this does not examine their verdicts involving understanding of instructions
• Researchers can't determine if jurors use their understanding of instructions to decide verdicts, or if verdicts are based on info
• It's argued that jurors can understand evidence and proof standards because the instructions are simple
• Jurors who decided a legally accurate verdict comprehended the instructions about offenses and defenses
• Jurors can decide a verdict based on common sense/beliefs/knowledge, even if not correct when jurors apply instructions with verdicts

Biases

• Drawing inferences about instructions from accuracy can overestimate jurors' application and underestimate their lack of it
• The relationship between comprehension and application may also incorrectly assume jurors will apply instructions and decide correct verdicts automatically
• Comprehension is required, but not enough for jurors to apply instructions as jurors also need to agree/remember, in McGuire's persuasion model
• Reluctance may not be accepted when jurors are instructed to disregard influencing evidence
• Information deemed irrelevant is ignored
• When jurors deem instructions do not fit the defense or have violated the spirit of the law instructions arent accepted
• The large amounts of information conveyed, as well as longer deliberations, leads to jurors failing to apply instructions

Measurement Requirements for Application

• Ability to measure jurors' application of instructions should be measured
• Should measure jurors' decisions on the issues on trial, their verdicts and ability to apply