Psychology of Jurors and Juries

Jurors and Juries

• Trial by jury is mentioned in both the main body of the US Constitution (Article 3) and the Bill of Rights (6th Amendment).
• Approximately 14.4% (37 million) of US adults are called for jury duty each year.
• Only about 29% of those called actually serve on a jury (approximately 11 million annually).

Psychological Study of Jurors

• Key questions about jurors include: how they reason, their competence, potential biases, and their deliberative processes.

How Jurors Think

• Cognitive-Experiential Self Theory is a dual-process model for processing information.
• Cognitive route involves active, deliberate, and effortful thinking.
• Experiential route involves unconscious and effortless thinking, often relying on emotions and intuition.

Reasoning Coherently

• Jurors form coherent representations of evidence to reach verdicts.
• At the start of a trial, jurors may have an overall idea of the "should be" verdict but lack a coherent understanding of the evidence.
• As evidence is presented, jurors' understanding of the verdict becomes more coherent.

The Story Model

• Jurors construct narratives (stories) to unify evidence.
• Jurors' stories incorporate three sources: presented evidence, personal experiences, and general knowledge about similar situations.

Are Jurors Competent?

• Research suggests evidentiary strength is a strong predictor of jury verdicts.
• Extralegal (non-legal) information can also influence decisions.
• Jurors struggle to distinguish strong from weak research.
• Jurors can be influenced by expert testimony, though it usually has a modest effect.

Do Jurors Understand Instructions?

• Jurors often struggle to comprehend complex or confusing legal instructions.
• Factors like complex language and confusing phrasing/logic can present problems.
• Jury instructions presented in simple words are easier to understand.
• Recency and primacy effects (how jurors remember and weigh information, respectively) affect comprehension.
• Jurors' understanding of evidence improves if they receive instructions before the evidence is presented.

Juror Willingness to Use Instructions

• Jury nullification is the ability of a jury to acquit a defendant despite evidence and instructions.
• Jurors may disregard instructions if they believe the law is unjust or the evidence is strong enough to override instructions.

Jurors and Complex Cases

• Complex cases involve multiple plaintiffs, defendants, or legal issues.
• Concerns about jurors understanding complicated evidence, multiple claims, and details in complex cases exist.

Should Jurors Be Used in Complex Cases?

• Concerns exist about jurors' ability to understand complex information
• providing aids, such as written summaries, to jury members might help.
• jury selection processes (voir dire) also impact ability to process complex cases.

Extralegal Factors

• Extralegal factors are non-legal considerations.
• Irrelevant information like defendant's background, appearance, or race, witness evidence (inadmissible or irrelevant), juror beliefs or attitudes (e.g., racism), and juror personal experience can affect verdicts.

Extralegal Information in Criminal Trials

• Prior-record evidence, character evidence, and propensity evidence can affect juror perceptions, even though such information can be highly prejudicial.

Influence of Prior Record

• Prior criminal records might bias jurors.
• While legally inadmissible in certain contexts, this evidence might be impactful for jurors.
• Limiting instructions might not be very effective.

Impact of Character Evidence

• Character evidence, like testimony describing a person's personality or reputation, can influence verdicts.
• Usually not a strong determinant of guilt or innocence.
• Positive character evidence can limit impact, but negative evidence significantly influences conviction likelihood.

Impact of Propensity Evidence

• Evidence about unrelated crimes or wrongdoings (propensity evidence) is typically not allowed.
• This type of evidence can powerfully affect juror decisions and increase the likelihood of verdicts.

Extralegal Information in Civil Trials

• Factors like injury severity and damages allocation can influence judgements in civil settings.

Extralegal Information and Civil Liability

• Juror perceptions of fault and liability are affected by factors outside the law's scope, such as feelings evoked by the evidence.
• Outcome severity affects damage awards, but does not directly influence liability decisions.

Assessing Damages

• Jurors often consider attorney fees and insurance coverage when evaluating damages.
• Assessing damages is a complex, subjective, and often unpredictable part of jury decisions.

Can Jurors Disregard Inadmissible Evidence?

• Inadmissible evidence is legally unsupportable.
• Jurors are instructed to disregard inadmissible evidence, but this instruction is often ineffective.

Why Can't Jurors Disregard the Evidence?

• Reactance theory describes how jurors resist pressure to disregard evidence.
• Thought suppression makes it difficult to ignore information once presented.

Are Juries Biased?

• A fundamental assumption is that juries have a blank slate when entering a trial.
• Juries are often prone to bias, stemming from jurors' prior opinions and experiences.
• Biases are typically considered inevitable and pervasive, even being considered extralegal in nature.

Juror Bias and Reasoning

• Predictional distortion is the tendency of jurors to evaluate evidence based on initial biases or expectations rather than objective standards.
• The sympathy hypothesis involves the impact of juror empathy with the victim or defendant on verdict severity.

Jury Deliberation

• Jury deliberations progress through stages: orientation, conflict, and resolution/reconciliation.
• Deliberations sometimes mitigate biases, but stronger evidence decreases bias more.

How Do Jurors Deliberate?

• Deliberation stages include orientation, conflict, and resolution.

Stage 2: Conflict

• This is usually the most contentious deliberation stage.
• Jurors are often influenced by other jurors' arguments.

Types of Deliberations

• Verdict-driven deliberation occurs when jurors vote early.
• Evidence-driven deliberation occurs when jurors examine all evidence before reaching a verdict.

Explore the psychological factors influencing jurors in the judicial process. This quiz covers the reasoning processes, biases, and decision-making strategies that jurors employ during trials. Learn about the significance of trial by jury in the US legal system as well.