Forensic Psychology For Dummies (112 page)

Be alert to any prejudicial information.

Avoid direct comment on the ultimate question.

Chapter 12

Making Sense in Court: Psychological Aspects of the Legal Processes

In This Chapter

Understanding psychology in the courts

Discovering the jury’s thought process and actions

Looking at asking and answering questions in court

Seeing the influence of psychologists in jury selection

Many of the forensic psychology activities that I describe in this book revolve around assessing the mental state of offenders, or the practice of
clinical
psychologists who work with mentally ill or disturbed people. But this chapter is a little different in that it focuses on the psychology of people without problems, who aren’t criminals. It covers the ways in which forensic psychologists illuminate court processes by drawing on the psychology of judges, lawyers and jurors and how they interact with each other (that is, the practice of
social
psychology). In particular, the presence of people without legal training (the jury) taking an active role in court proceedings raises many interesting questions for psychologists.

In this chapter, therefore, I explore the legal processes themselves and the attitudes and behaviour of juries, lawyers and of course expert psychologists, in order to throw light on the thought processes and behaviour of the people involved in this most curious of human institutions.

Uncovering Psychology in the Courts

The adversarial legal process consists of judges and juries hearing witnesses being questioned and the prosecution and defence lawyers offering their account of the evidence (I describe this process and other legal systems in detail in Chapter 3). All this activity takes place within a long-established framework, which many legal experts have developed and studied. And yet, in all English-speaking countries and many other democracies, a central role is taken by ordinary people because they make crucial decisions as part of a jury. These juries operate in different ways in different countries, but for the present chapter I focus on the sorts of juries that you will find in the US, UK, Australia and Canada.

The jury is an unusual (even unnatural) but fascinating social group. It consists of people who don’t know each other and yet have to come to momentous decisions within legal constraints that are novel to them.

The power of the interpersonal processes that are active when a jury debates the evidence is brilliantly illustrated in the classic film
12 Angry Men,
in which Henry Fonda’s character eventually persuades all 11 other jurors to change their minds. And yet in general, the forms of influence that people exert on each other in the jury room are poorly understood because of the secrecy of their deliberations as they interpret the evidence.

The 12-person jury we take for granted in English-speaking countries is not the same around the world. Juries can have many different mixes of people. For example, some juries in France consist of 9 ordinary people and 3 judges!

Of course, judges and lawyers also have to make sense of the available evidence and decide how to present it to the jury, or whether to present it all. To do so, they draw on psychological ideas about how people deal with evidence and how information can be presented to put their case in the strongest light.

Examining existing legal rituals

Over many hundreds of years, the trial procedure in courts developed into a standard practice with many associated rituals. These rituals make plenty of psychological assumptions about how seriously everyone involved takes the legal proceedings, and how readily they accept the power and legitimacy of the courts. For this reason, although many of these assumptions haven’t been scientifically tested, it’s extremely valuable to consider what the assumptions are, and the psychological sense they make.

The rituals are enshrined in the physical layout of most courts. This has changed over the years and varies from one place to another. US courts tend to have a more informal layout than in the UK, and courts that deal with families usually deliberately try to break down many of the formal barriers inherent in traditional layouts. But it’s useful to be aware of the symbolic significance of the traditional layout, because that reveals the symbolic and psychological significance of the various actors in the court proceedings.

In the traditional layout the sitting judge has the highest seat, usually in the centre of the court, in order to reflect the position’s supreme importance and high status (and ensure that the person can see everything going on!). Below the judge is likely to be a clerk to the court (who looks after proceedings) and often a stenographer or someone else who’s recording the whole proceedings.

The rest of the layout also represents the significance of the other individuals in the legal process. If it’s a court that has a jury, they will typically be to one side, on benches slightly lower than the judge, or in their own boxed area. In the Crown Courts in the UK (where the most serious crimes are tried), the accused stands in what’s known as the
dock
at a separate location, with direct access to the holding cells. Interestingly, in the US, the accused may often sit with his attorney, which gives them an opportunity to communicate during the trial, an arrangement not so feasible in most UK Crown Courts.

The descriptions of courts and juries in this chapter relate to the courts that deal with the most serious crimes. In most countries the great majority of crimes, as many as 97%, are dealt with in courts that do not have juries, but have only one judge
–
or, in the UK, three people who aren’t qualified lawyers, known as magistrates – who makes the legal decision. (More details are given in Chapter 3.)

Each witness stands, alone and in turn, often in a
witness box,
to show that the person in that location is playing a significant role on which the court is focussed. In front of the judge, in the main body of the court, there are seats or benches for the lawyers and behind them for the solicitors who advise them. The area for the public is behind the lawyers, because justice in a democracy ‘must be seen to be done’. In courts that hold trials of public significance, special benches are set aside for reporters.