Transcript Examination of suspects

Social Psychology: Juries and
Judges
Jury selection involves a voir dire:
– Challenges for cause
– Pre-emptory challenges
– Leaves a jury of 12 people who are supposed to represent the
community of peers
Non-scientific jury selection:
– Random acceptance: used to give jury appearance of confidence
– Anecdotal selection: based on “wisdom of the ages” involving
long held but unverified stereotypes such as
• Women are more punitive than men
• Wealthy men are most likely to convict
• Artistically inclined people are better for the plaintiff in a civil case
Social Psychology: Juries and
Judges
Scientific jury selection:
– Research shows that random acceptance and anecdotal selection does
not work:
• Diamond (1978) researched 12 criminal trials. People rejected from the jury
during voir dire were asked to remain in the court room as a mock or
shadow jury. After the case was sent to the jury for deliberation, the mock
jury was also sent for deliberations. The decisions of the real juries were
compared to the mock juries and post decision interviews were held of both
jury members. The results show that there was no difference between the
real juries and the mock juries.
• Olczark (1991) created a mock trial situation. Lawyers who had been
practicing for many years were asked to carry out a voir dire and create a
jury. Also a group of not yet graduated law students were asked to do the
same, as were a group of college students with no law education. The trial
was carried out and the decisions and deliberations of the various juries
were compared. There was no difference between the juries created by the
lawyers and two groups of students.
Social Psychology: Juries and
Judges
– Scientific selection involves profiling prospective jurors on the basis of
personality, demographics, behavioural traits, occupational traits, civil status, etc.
• Example of effectiveness of scientific selection is the O.J. Simpson trial. The
prosecution rejected the use of scientific selection and went with random acceptance.
The defence used scientific selection. The defence managed to get 8 black women and
2 white women on the jury with only 1 black man and 1 latino man. This jury matched
the profile of people who would be least likely to convict, would forgive Mr. Simpson for
abusing his wife, would perceive Marcia Clark (the prosecutor) in a very negative
fashion, would believe that the L.A.P.D. framed Mr. Simpson, and would rather pay
attention to slogans and sound-bites such as “if it doesn’t fit you must acquit” than to
scientific evidence such as DNA. After 8 months of trial, the jury took 4 hours to acquit.
– Factors that affect jurors and judges:
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Locus of control
Belief in a just world
Authoritarianism
Attitudes towards the criminal justice system
Attitudes towards the civil justice system
Primacy and recency effects
Similarity-leniency hypothesis
Conformity
The key juror phenomenon
Social Psychology: Juries and
Judges
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Jury size is also a factor:
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The number 12 for a jury is a tradition based on the fact that
Jesus had 12 disciples. There was no scientific validation for this
number.
More recently, the US Supreme Court ruled that in non-capital
cases the jury can be as small as 6. The Court based its decision
on 6 “scientific studies”. These “studies were later found to be
invalid or mis-interpreted.
New research on jury size shows that juries of 6 can make valid
decisions but that the larger the jury, the more reliable it will be in
reflecting the community of peers. This parallels the research
methods concept that the larger a sample, the more it will
accurately represent the population.
Psychological assessments in
civil cases: custody
•Primary directive is “the best interests of the children”
•Factors that affect decision:
•Age of children
•Gender of children
•Quality of relationship of children to each parent
•Quality of relationship of children to siblings and extended family
•Parenting skills of each parent (Ackerman-Schoendorf Scales for
Custody assessment –ASPECT)
•Psychological stability health of each parent :
•Projective tests : Ink Blot Test, TAT
•Objective Tests: MMPI-2, MCMI-3