These studies investigated the differential inclination to convict as well as the demographic and personality differences between impaneled felony jurors who varied in their approval of capital punishment. Study 1 employed 282 jurors impaneled in state court in 1975–1976; Study 2 involved 346 impaneled in 1982–1983. In Study 1 contingencies between 42 demographic/personality/juror experience variables and the jurors' attitude toward capital punishment were examined. In Study 2 the same contingency with attitude toward the death penalty was examined for 58 demographic/personality/juror experience variables. In Study 1, jurors who more strongly favored capital punishment were marginally more likely to have favored convictions. This effect was due to the female subsample. In Study 2, jurors who more strongly favored capital punishment were significantly more likely to favor convicting. If the felony was capital, or the weight of the evidence weaker as indicated by a longer jury deliberation, jurors in Study 2 who more strongly favored capital punishment were even more inclined toward conviction. Results from these studies show that jurors who were more favorable toward capital punishment were significantly more likely to be Caucasion, male, married, wealthier, Republican, politically conservative, and authoritarian. They reported reaching quicker verdicts, participating more in their jury deliberations, and being more persuasive on their juries. These findings suggest that attitude toward the death penalty indexes conviction proneness as well as membership in legally cognizable classes. The findings may raise Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment grounds for altering the method of death qualification of capital jurors as established in Witherspoon v Illinois (1968).

Contingencies between 23 demographic/personality variables and jury verdict, juror predeliberational verdict, tendency to change his or her verdict, and self-perceived participation and influence were examined by step-wise multiple regression for 319 felony jurors. Conviction-prone male Ss were more interested in having families, had more children, and had lower incomes. They evidenced higher authoritarianism and socialization but lower scores on the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. Conviction-prone female Ss had higher scores on the Just World Scale, evidenced legal authoritarianism, and were more empathic and less anomic. In this venue, S's foreign ancestry was more remote. In addition, predictors were identified for the S's tendency to change verdicts and to perceive himself or herself as participating in and influencing the jury's deliberation. The practical utility of scientific juror selection in actual trials is discussed. (39 ref)

JOHN CRAIG COMFORT is an associate professor of the Mathematical Sciences Faculty of Florida International University m Miami. He received his PhD degree from Case Western Reserve University in 1974; his dissertation research was in the fields of artificial intelligence and information retrieval. Since that time, his major research interest gradually changed to the strategically related and tactically disparate field of simulation.Dr. Comfort's research interests include discrete simulation methodology, software engineering as applied to simulation program design, data structures and algorithms for simulation, and especially, the development of a multiprocessor computer for discrete-event simulation. He has also applied simulation to the investigation of several topics, including case flow through the Florida felony court system, the jury selection process, the design of an electronic funds transfer system for the state of Florida, and a model for tree growth explaining the shape of a tree from its local branching behavior. One of his current interests is the design of a modeling work station, incorporating sophisticated graphics and information access capabilities.Dr. Comfort has published many papers in the field, and has participated in several of the national organizations fostering discrete simulation activity. He is currently vice-president of the Annual Simulation Symposium and an ACM National Lecturer. His professional affiliations include ACM, SCS, Sigma Xi, SIGPLAN, SIGGRAPH, SIGSIM, and SIGDOC. He has also served as a consultant m the development of dedicated microprocessor systems.ABSTRACT Event set manipulation may consume a considerable amount of the computation time spent in performing a discrete-event simulation. One way of minimizing this time is to allow event set processing to proceed in parallel with the remainder of the simulation computation. This paper describes a multiprocessor simulation computer, in which all non-event set processing is performed by the principle processor (called the host). Event set processing is coordinated by a front end processor (the master) and actually performed by several other functionally identical processors (the slaves). A trace-driven simulation program modeling this sytem was constructed, and was run with trace output taken from two different simulation programs. Output from this simulation suggests that a significant reduction in run time may be realized by this approach. Sensitivity analysis was performed on the significant parameters to the system (number of slave processors, relative processor speeds, and interprocessor communication times). A comparison between actual and simulated run times for a one-processor system was used to assist in the validation of the simulation.

No abstract

No abstract