The Cognitive Psychology of Mens Rea

Facts into faults: The grammar of guilt in jury deliberations

“…One way around this is to view the deliberation process as essentially a cognitive one (e.g. Heller, 2009;Hastie, 1991/1992). Another is to simply correlate jury inputs, such as the decision rule or the distribution of initial verdict preferences, with jury outputs, namely verdicts (e.g.…”

“…Another is to simply correlate jury inputs, such as the decision rule or the distribution of initial verdict preferences, with jury outputs, namely verdicts (e.g. Hastie et al, 1983: 59-82;Heller, 2009). And when jury researchers do attend to juror talk, they are apt to quantify it using some pre-conceived coding scheme (e.g.…”

“…Nor was the claim that the quantity of both marijuana and cocaine exceeded what one or two people could have consumed, 4 which implied that it was intended for sale. The key question was whether Solano was aware that she was transporting illegal drugs; if not, she could not be found guilty (Heller, 2009). Jurors are not mind-readers, however.…”