effects of PTP concerning both parties. Although prosecutorial behavior may provide fodder for media reports about criminal trials (e.g., coercion, fabricated evidence, police misconduct), the criminal justice system's paramount concern with defendants' rights understandably leads to an emphasis on PTP regarding the defendant. In a civil trial, on the other hand, either the plaintiff's or the defendant's right to a fair trial could be compromised by prejudicial PTP. The present research was designed to examine the effects of PTP in a civil case.How much prejudicial PTP in civil cases is actually released? Imrich, Mullin, and Linz (1995) conducted a content analysis of 14 popular U.S. newspapers over a period of 8 weeks. Overall, Imrich et al. found that 27% of the suspects in crime stories during the period were described in a prejudicial manner. Although a comparable analysis of PTP in civil cases has not been performed, Bailis and MacCoun (1996) sampled a number of national newsmagazines (e.g., Time, Newsweek) and found that they gave steady coverage to tort litigation. Moreover, they found that most of the coverage distorted actual court statistics. For example, the media considerably overrepresented plaintiffs' victory rate at trial. These studies suggest that a nontrivial percentage of participants in both the criminal and civil justice systems are subjected to media coverage containing information prejudicial to their case. More important for the legal system is the question of whether exposure to PTP influences jurors' verdicts. Although researchers disagree about whether there is enough empirical support to help the courts in establishing guidelines for PTP (Carroll et al., 1986;Fulero, 1987), in general, research has shown that exposure to PTP can serve to prejudice the jury against criminal defendants (