Forensic Psychology For Dummies (114 page)
Read Forensic Psychology For Dummies Online
Authors: David Canter
One way of studying jury decision-making is to get a group of people together to simulate a jury (called a
mock jury
). Court proceedings can then be presented to the members and they’re observed coming to a decision. The main concern is to discover what makes the members more likely to decide in favour of guilt or innocence. Of course, one large problem here is that the same pressures don’t exist on these people as in a real case. For example, no one’s going to be imprisoned for a long time and members of the jury don’t get into legal hot-water for misbehaving. So there aren’t the same pressures on them to do the right thing as there would be in a real court. Unsurprisingly, such results are far from a clear reflection of what happens in real-life practice, and in fact tend to show that juries are rather more able to deal with the complexities of the legal process than may be expected.
How juries decide the verdict is psychologically fascinating. Research shows that in fact jurors do what anyone does when hearing about a crime. They try to work out the most plausible storyline that accounts for the facts; that is, they produce a cause-and-effect sequence that accords with their understanding of how events can occur. This sequence draws on assumptions about the evidence presented, judgements about the defendant and about how and why such crimes happen.
The development of a plausible story by jurors often goes through three phases:
1. The jury members individually construct various possible plots that tie together the evidence as it’s presented.
The extent to which the evidence is covered by any proposed narrative is used to select from among the different stories on offer. The possible plots are also examined in terms of how internally consistent they are, how well the facts agree with each other and how they fit into the narrative. All these aspects are checked against the juror’s understanding of how things typically happen – how plausible they are.
2. The jury members evaluate various storylines against the instructions given by the judge.
This step includes the key legal issues and the different types of verdict available.
3. The jury members select the verdict that most closely matches with the most plausible cause-and-effect narrative sequence of actions.
The result is a lengthy discussion or even a hung jury, one on which no overall agreement can be reached between all or most of the members of the jury. This is because no close match emerges, or members of the jury disagree with each other on the most plausible story or how well it fits the facts or implies a verdict.
The contrast effect
An interesting phenomenon found with jury decision is the
contrast effect,
which applies to many human judgements. If you’re offered a very expensive pair of shoes and then a cheaper pair that are still expensive you’re likely to think that the second pair is more reasonably priced than if you’re offered a very cheap pair and then the moderately expensive pair, which then seem very expensive. In other words, people’s judgements tend to be relative.The contrast effect is found in studies of people making decisions about guilt or innocence in simulated legal decisions. If a rape case is presented followed by a vandalism case, a greater chance exists of the vandalism case receiving a guilty verdict; if the vandalism case is presented first, it has a lower probability of leading to a conviction.
Of course this effect is most powerful if the jury, or the judge even, is dealing with a series of cases one after another. Their idea of ‘seriousness’ is influenced by what it’s compared with. That’s one reason why there are guidelines on what crimes should receive what sentences to try and make sentencing less influenced by these sorts of psychological effects.
Comprehending the legal rituals and terms
The legal profession all over the world delights in its own vocabulary. The esoteric labels for the different participants in court (check out the earlier sidebar ‘Getting to grips with legal definitions’) are only the tip of legal jargon. Even everyday terms such as
insanity
take on special meanings in law (as I discuss in Chapter 3). Concepts such as
mens rea,
that I describe in Chapter 1 and refer to throughout this book, and many other legal terms, are used in court and jurors need to understand them.
The sorts of issues that juries often struggle with or don’t understand include:
The notion of
the burden of proof
, and especially the idea in criminal cases of
beyond reasonable doubt.
These terms turn out to be somewhat ambiguous and jurors may have difficulty in agreeing on what they mean.
intent
before a person can be convicted of murder.
burglary
and
robbery
(the latter incorporates assault or the threat of it; check out Chapter 6 for more info).
aggravation
) or that help explain the defendant’s actions and reduce the implications of its seriousness (called
mitigation
).