Deliberating about terrorism: Prejudice and jury verdicts in a mock terrorism trial

Abstract

Juries in many Western countries are being asked to make decisions about defendants charged with terrorist-related offences, in situations where heightened anxieties and hostility to outgroups may make a fair trial difficult. What impact can deliberation have in addressing any such prejudice? This study estimates the impact of several forms of prejudice on juror verdicts in a mock terrorism trial. The study provides a more realistic setting than most previous studies, with an authentic heritage courtroom, actual jury assembly room and jury deliberation rooms in the NSW Supreme Court, a one-hour live trial and one-hour deliberation. Strong relationships are found between conviction rates and prior attitudes before jury discussion, consistent with other literature. Deliberation significantly reduces the proportion of guilty verdicts; it also reduces the impact on verdict of two forms of prejudice – fear of terrorism and punitiveness. On the other hand it tends to increase the impact of cognitive prejudice, measured both by a modified version of the Jury Bias Scale and a terrorism-specific scale based on attitudes to Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks.

Storytelling Rituals in Jury Deliberations

“…There is a large body of social-psychological literature on how gender, race, social class, bias, and prior attitudes may impact jury decision-making (see Devine 2012 for a thorough review). This research suggests that while background characteristics and attitudes can impact decision-making, in some cases deliberation seems to reduce prior biases (Tait 2011, Devine 2012). This analysis does not seek to underplay what jurors bring with them to the deliberation table in terms of status characteristics and attitudes.…”

“…This paper examines a deliberation from a single jury who received visual evidence, expert testimony, and judicial instructions. It does not present the results of the larger experiment (see Tait 2011 andGoodman-Delahunty 2016). The exploratory nature of the investigation and the unique richness of the video data make an analysis of a single case suitable.…”

Differential or deferential to media? The effect of prejudicial publicity on judge or jury

“…Given the absence of a consistent theme in the data gathered concerning this issue, little can be concluded about the impact of the deliberation process with respect to pre-trial publicity. Tait’s 2010 empirical work concerning juror bias in terrorism trials notes that the results supported the hypothesis that deliberation may reduce conviction levels (Tait, 2011: 397). However, the evidence has not yet reached a stage where a conclusion could be drawn with confidence in relation to the impact of deliberations on the prejudicial impact of pre-trial publicity.…”

Juror perceptions of incentivized informant testimony

“…Although individual verdict preferences have been shown to be a consistent predictor of group outcomes (Davis, 1973;Devine et al, 2001), it is possible that the results would vary if a group deliberation component was used (see Salerno & Diamond, 2010; see also Garcia et al, 2021). For example, prior studies have suggested that deliberations may help reduce the impact of certain sources of bias, such as bias from exposure to inadmissible evidence (London & Nunez, 2000) or prejudice related to terrorism (Tait, 2011). Additional research is therefore needed to explore whether the effects 93 observed in this study would be consistent, amplified or reduced with the inclusion of deliberations.…”