Jury Selection in Child Sex Abuse Trials: A Case Analysis

Abstract

Child sex abuse cases have been the target of considerable psycho-legal research. The present paper offers an analysis of psychological constructs for jury selection in child sex abuse cases from the defense perspective. The authors specifically delineate general and case-specific jury selection variables. General variables include authoritarianism, dogmatism, need for cognition, pretrial knowledge, and race/socioeconomic status. Case-specific variables include sexual attitudes, homonegativity, juror abuse history, and beliefs about children. The paper also provides a factual background of a representative case, incorporates relevant case law, identifies sources for voir dire and juror questionnaire items, and discusses lessons from the primary author's first experience as a trial consultant for the defense.

Measuring Attitudes About Hate: Development of the Hate Crime Beliefs Scale

“…Practice implications may be especially relevant to trial consulting, as professionals in the field often rely on empirical data to inform assisting attorneys with jury selection or trial strategy (e.g., Brodsky, 2009;Cramer, Adams, & Brodsky, 2009). The present study offers findings that may be useful in both jury selection and trial strategy for a hate-crime trial, as case-specific attitudes tend to be strong predictors of legal decisions and trial outcomes (Cramer et al, 2009;Lieberman & Sales, 2007). Specifically, findings from the present study suggest that an area to be covered during jury selection may include general negative views toward hate crimes, as this were the strongest predictors of sentencing outcomes and blame attribution in the current study.…”

Child victim empathy mediates the influence of jurors’ sexual abuse experiences on child sexual abuse case judgments: Meta-analyses.

“…. Jurors with personal abuse histories are unlikely to be impartial” (Cramer et al, 2009, pp. 191, 198).…”

“…We reasoned that these similar experiences would have similar effects. It is practically important to examine these alternative forms of sexual abuse experience because during voir dire and jury selection, attorneys often try to identify jurors with each of these experiences, often assuming that those experiences make people more provictim (Bochnak, 2012; Cramer et al, 2009; University of North Carolina School of Government, 2016), but sometimes assuming the opposite (National Center of Domestic and Sexual Violence, 2005). It also makes sense to do so given the extent to which these groups overlap: Child victims are at high risk for revictimization later as adults (Classen, Palesh, & Aggarwal, 2005; Humphrey & White, 2000; McGee, Garavan, de Barra, Byrne, & Conroy, 2002), and child and adult victims are likely to know other victims and be sought out for others’ sexual abuse disclosures (Ahrens, Campbell, Ternier-Thames, Wasco, & Sefl, 2007; Jacques-Tiura, Tkatch, Abbey, & Wegner, 2010).…”

“…Further, legal professionals believe that sexual abuse experiences are common in jury pools (Floyd, 2019). Most appear to believe that sexual abuse experience makes jurors more provictim in child sexual abuse trials (Bochnak, 2012; Cramer, Adams, & Brodsky, 2009; University of North Carolina School of Government, 2016), but others think that it makes them less provictim (National Center of Domestic and Sexual Violence, 2005), perhaps believing that victims will need to distance themselves from painful reminders of their own abuse, consistent with psychological theories discussed in detail later (e.g., Zaki, 2014). Attorneys act upon those intuitions during jury selection by asking questions about sexual abuse experiences (as a child, adult, or vicariously as an acquaintance of a victim) in pretrial questionnaires and during voir dire (e.g., Cramer et al, 2009; Floyd, 2019), sometimes excluding members of the venire based on the answers.…”

The psychologist as trial consultant.

“…Although panel selection is typically done without the benefit of casespecific research, there does exist a great deal of relevant scientific literature for many cases. Some, for example, addresses juror characteristics predicting verdicts in cases of child sex abuse (e.g., Cramer, Adams, & Brodsky, 2009;Voogt & Klettke, 2017) indicating, for example, a much stronger likelihood of prosecution verdicts among female jurors. A much larger body of research addresses juror predictors of verdicts in cases of adult sexual assault, indicating the importance, for example, of various types of "rape supportive attitudes" and identifying types of jurors most likely to hold them (e.g., for reviews, see Grubb & Turner, 2012;Rerick et al, 2018).…”