Jury decision making: 45 years of empirical research on deliberating groups.

Abstract

This article provides a comprehensive review of the empirical research on jury decision making published between 1955 and 1999. In total, 206 distinguishable studies involving deliberating juries (actual or mock) were located and grouped into 4 categories on the basis of their focal variables: (a) procedural characteristics, (b) participant characteristics, (c) case characteristics, and (d) deliberation characteristics. Numerous factors were found to have consistent effects on jury decisions: definitions of key legal terms, verdict/sentence options, trial structure, jury-defendant demographic similarity, jury personality composition related to authoritarianism/dogmatism, jury attitude composition, defendant criminal history, evidence strength, pretrial publicity, inadmissible evidence, case type, and the initial distribution of juror verdict preferences during deliberation. Key findings, emergent themes, practical implications, and future research directions are discussed.

Avoiding Catastrophe: The Interactional Production of Possibility during the Cuban Missile Crisis

“…This is true when it is clear to most everyone what the "right" thing to do is, such as when two-thirds of jurors believe that a defendant is innocent prior to deliberations, and the jury predictably delivers a not-guilty verdict (Devine et al 2001). It is also true when strong vested interests are in play and a powerful individual or coalition can override, or buy off, all resistance to whatever decision it favors (Bueno de Mesquita 2009).…”

Decision Making, Mindfulness and Mood: How Mindfulness Techniques can Reduce the Impact of Biases and Heuristics through Improved Decision Making and Positive Affect

“…It is also, however, possible that these decisions could guide individuals toward unhelpful or even destructive outcomes. Even far-reaching constructs such as racism, poor numeric reasoning, jury bias, flawed physician decision making, and negative economic outcomes have been linked to decision making biases [3][4][5][6][7].…”

The Relationship Between Empathy and Stringency of Punishment in Mock Jurors

“…By only using mock jurors, the ecological validity and supposedly the external validity of the study is weakened. Consequently, Devine et al (2001) have reported that the use of mock jurors have been criticized by many judges for lacking realism. At the same time, no other approach is capable of controlling influential extraneous variables that are related to the case as effectively as is possible with the use of mock jurors.…”

“…Hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens serve on juries every year, and a significant proportion of the U.S. population will serve on juries at some time in their lives (Devine, Clayton, Dunford, Seying, & Pryce, 2001). Additionally, several countries use a similar system as the U.S. in which the jury is made up entirely of laypersons (e.g., Australia, Canada, UK, New Zealand, Russia, and Spain).…”