A Jury of One: Opinion Formation, Conformity, and Dissent on Juries

Abstract

Approximately 6 percent of criminal juries hang. But, how many dissenters carry the jury, hang the jury, or conform to the majority's wishes? This article examines the formation of individual verdict preferences, the impact of deliberation, and the role of the dissenter using data from nearly 3,500 jurors who decided felony cases. Jurors were asked: "If it were entirely up to you as a one-person jury, what would your verdict have been in this case?" Over one-third of jurors, privately, would have voted against their jury's decision. Analyses identify the characteristics of jurors who dissent, and distinguish dissenters who hang the jury from dissenters who acquiesce. Deliberation procedures, juror role expectations, their evidentiary views, and their sense of fairness affected the likelihood of dissent. Contrary to previous research, deliberations play a vital role in generating juror consensus and shed new light on the debate over the requirement that juries be unanimous in their verdict.

From the shadows into the light: How pretrial publicity and deliberation affect mock jurors’ decisions, impressions, and memory.

“…One explanation for the leniency bias is that during jury deliberations the defendant protection norm and reasonable doubt standard are highlighted (Kerr, 1993;Waters & Hans, 2009). The leniency bias is most likely to be found in trials that are ambiguous as to guilt (MacCoun & Kerr, 1988;Tanford & Penrod, 1986).…”

Laws of cognition and the cognition of law

“…The studies that inform understanding of these dynamics have all been in the nature of mock-juror studies performed on members of the public. There are reasonable grounds for treating these studies as furnishing insight into the decisionmaking of actual juries (Waters & Hans, 2009), whose members are of course drawn from exactly that population.…”

Deliberation and Group Disagreement

“…The above reply is met with a rather straightforward counterreply. Empirical studies by Waters and Hans (2009) show how deliberation often does engender testimonial injustice in the case of juries (particularly those using unanimity rules), where the rules for evaluating evidence are, and paradigmatically so, meant to be impartial ones. What Waters and Hans (2009) found was that (in a study of 3500 jurors in four urban courts) 38% of juries contained at least one juror who succumbed to social pressure by voting along with the rest despite being such that they would have voted differently had they voted privately.…”

“…Empirical studies by Waters and Hans (2009) show how deliberation often does engender testimonial injustice in the case of juries (particularly those using unanimity rules), where the rules for evaluating evidence are, and paradigmatically so, meant to be impartial ones. What Waters and Hans (2009) found was that (in a study of 3500 jurors in four urban courts) 38% of juries contained at least one juror who succumbed to social pressure by voting along with the rest despite being such that they would have voted differently had they voted privately. (Waters and Hans 2009: 520) And, as Brian Hedden (2016) notes, such pressures are "likely to have a disproportionate impact on "low status" jurors, that is, females, members of minority ethnic groups, jurors with less education, jurors of low socioeconomic status, and the like" (2006: 7).…”