Factors Affecting Jury Decision Making

Question	Answer
What is Pre Trail Publicity (PTP)?	The information in the media about a trial before it begins. It may include facts about the crime and the suspect (such as their past offences) and may also be opinion based.
Why might PTP effect a jurors ability to do their role in a naive manner?	They may have schemas from the PTP that, during the trial, fill gaps in knowledge if they do not understand something. This is reconstructive memory.
What did Padwar-Singer and Barton (1974) do?	Gave one group paper cuttings regarding a trial to read. The other group did not receive these cuttings. Both groups listened to the corresponding trial. 78% of jurors who read the newspapers beforehand voted guilty, only 55% of those who didn't read them voted guilty.
What did Thomas (2010) do?	She conducted a longitudinal shadow jury study looking at high profile cases. She found high profile cases with lots of PTP had a 70% chance of jurors using PTP in their final decision. 20% of jurors on high profile cases admitted to finding it difficult to ignore PTP in decisions.
What did Steblay (1999) do?	A meta-analysis of trials. Agreed that PTP affects verdicts and was more likely to elicit a guilty verdict. (59% guilty in PTP, 45% without PTP). Also found that a combination of both TV and newspaper PTP gave a higher guilty verdict and cases of murder, rape and drug crimes got the highest guilty verdict.
What did Daftary-Kapur et al (2014) do?	Conducted a shadow jury study that found that there was no difference in the verdicts of those exposed naturally to PTP and those exposed artificially in experiments. This suggests that research into PTP has external validity.
Which characteristics of the defendant are likely to affect the verdict made by the jury?	Attractiveness, race and gender.
In what way does attractiveness effect the verdict of suspects?	Attractive people are seen as intelligent, trustworthy and friendly, so people automatically think them to be harmless and that they wouldn't commit a crime.
What did Castellow et al (1990) do?	Demonstrated that unattractive people are more likely to be seen as criminals. A sexual harassment case was staged with a secretary and a boss. When the boss was unattractive but the security was attractive, there were the most guilty verdicts (83%). If the boss was attractive, only 41% deemed them guilty if the secretary was unattractive.
What did Sigall and Ostrove (1975) do?	Looked at the attractiveness of the defendant and how 'attractiveness-related' a crime was. If a crime didn't rely on appearance (like murder), an unattractive person would get a harsher sentence. If a crime relied on appearance (like swindling), a harsher sentence would be given to attractive defendants.
What did Efran (1974) do?	Gave students a survey on juries. The participants stated that they don't belief appearance should make a juror biased. The same students participated in an experiment in which they gave guilty verdicts to attractive defendants with much less certainty, hence, giving them weaker punishments.
What did Taylor and Butcher (2007) do?	Carried out a mock jury in the UK. A fiction mugging was created and photos of 'defendants' were attached. The participant jurors were more likely to find an unattractive defendant as guilty. Also, black defendants were given harsher sentences.
How does gender generally effect a jury decision?	Men are more likely to be punished harsher as they are stereotyped to be more aggressive, and hence, more likely to commit crime. Women are seen to have more maternal roles, hence it is more surprising for a woman to engage in criminal behaviour.
What did McCoy and Gray do?	Suggested that Jurors were likely to see female defendants as more believable as males commit more high risk crimes. Additionally, female defendants are often mothers and aren't seen to be aggressive in nature as they're maternal.
What did Cruse and Leigh do?	They conducted a mock jury of a domestic violence case in which the crime was changed for each group. One group was told 'Jack' attacked 'Lucy' and the other was told Lucy was the attacker. When Jack attacked Lucy, 43% of jurors said he was guilty. Whereas, 69% of jurors convicted Lucy when she attacked Jack.
How does race affect a juries decision?	Black defendants are more likely to be convicted and given harsher sentences. The UK population has a black population of 8%, yet in prisons, black people make up 15% of the inmates.
What did Mitchell et al do?	Conducted a meta-analysis looking at 34 studies where participants were more likely to convict someone of another race. They would give people of another race a harsher sentence. Black people were treated harsher in sentences of murder and rape.
Bradbury and Williams (2013)	Examined whether the racial makeup of a jury effects their decision making. They found black defendants are less likely to be convicted by mostly black juries but white juries will convict black defendants more readily. Jurors of hispanics are most likely to convict black people.
What was found in the Louise Woodward case?	The jury did not understand the expert testimony so they wrongly convicted the defendant. The judge later overturned this decision, as expert testimony blatantly pointed towards the verdict being innocent.

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Factors Affecting Jury Decision Making

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	Created by Emma Lloyd almost 8 years ago