Positive and Negative Pretrial Publicity

Abstract

The authors investigated the effects of exposure to pretrial publicity (PTP) on impression formation, juror emotion, and predecisional distortion. Mock jurors read news articles containing negative (antidefendant) PTP or positive (prodefendant) PTP or unrelated articles. One week later, they viewed a videotaped murder trial and then made decisions about guilt. Jurors’ emotions were measured three times during the experiment: before exposure to PTP, immediately after exposure to PTP, and immediately following the trial. Exposure to both positive and negative PTP significantly affected verdicts, perceptions of defendant credibility, emotion (anger and positive emotions), and predecisional distortion. Defendant’s credibility, jurors’ emotions, and predecisional distortion significantly mediated the effect of PTP on guilt ratings.

Statistical mediation analysis with a multicategorical independent variable

“…Others have treated a discrete, ordinal independent variable as interval level and used standard regression-based techniques (Chandler & Pronin, 2012;Legault, Gutsell, & Inzlicht, 2011). Alternatively, investigators have modified their data to produce a dichotomous X, such as by conducting separate analyses comparing various groups of interest while discarding the remaining data (Pedersen, Denson, Goss, Vasquez, Kelly, & Miller, 2011;Ronay, Greenaway, Anicich, & Galinsky, 2012;Werle, Wansink, & Payne, 2011;Whitchurch, Wilson, & Gilbert, 2011) or collapsing multiple groups into one for comparison with another group or set of groups (Calogero & Jost, 2011;Haisley & Loewenstein, 2011;Ruva, Guenther, & Yarbrough, 2011). Another strategy used is substituting a continuous manipulation check for the multicategorical X and proceeding with a mediation analysis as if X were observed as a continuum (Forgas, 2011).…”

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

“…Even after many decades of research on juror/jury decision making, the effects of PTP on deliberating jurors are still unclear (Daftary-Kapur, Dumas, & Penrod, 2010). Previous research has found that PTP imparts its biasing effects on jurors' decisions by influencing their perceptions of the defendant's credibility and their ability to discriminate the source of case information (PTP vs. trial; Ruva & McEvoy, 2008;Ruva, McEvoy, & Bryant, 2007), as well as eliciting emotional responses in jurors (Kramer, Kerr, & Carroll, 1990;Ruva, Guenther, & Yarbrough, 2011), and causing predecisional distortion (Hope, Memon, & McGeorge, 2004;Ruva, Mayes, Dickman, & McEvoy, 2012).…”

Trial by Social Media

“…In support of this finding, Ruva, McEvoy & Bryant (2007) found that exposure to negative pre-trial publicity significantly affected the number of guilty verdicts, the sentence length awarded and perceptions of defendant credibility. While Ruva, Guenther & Yarbrough (2011) found that mock jurors exposed to positive pre-trial publicity were significantly more likely to vote not guilty and rate the defendant as more credible, compared to jurors exposed to negative pre-trial publicity and jurors who were not exposed to pre-trial publicity.…”