When prior knowledge and law collide: Helping jurors use the law.

Smith, Vicki L.

doi:10.1007/bf01045071

Cited by 102 publications

(180 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Therefore, in Study 2 we explore whether explicit information about this restriction-of which real attorneys are certainly aware-leads our mock attorneys to forgo using gender to eliminate jurors. There is mixed evidence on the general effectiveness of such warnings in improving legal decision-making (e.g., Carlson & Russo, 2001;Smith, 1993;Smith & Greene, 2005). We suspected that given intuitions and stereotypes regarding juror gender-particularly in the trial of a defendant using a ''battered wife'' defense-such a warning would not decrease gender bias.…”

Section: Studymentioning

confidence: 94%

Bias in jury selection: justifying prohibited peremptory challenges

Norton¹,

Sommers²,

Brauner³

2007

Behavioral Decision Making

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The United States Supreme Court has restricted attorneys from considering the gender and race of potential jurors in their use of peremptory challenges-the practice by which jurors may be removed from a jury without explanation or evidence of potential bias. We propose that forbidding peremptories based on social category information not only fails to decrease biased jury selection, but also encourages attorneys to searchsuccessfully-for neutral justifications for their biased decisions. In Study 1, participants who acted as prosecutors in a jury selection paradigm eliminated female jurors more often than male jurors, but then justified these biased choices by citing genderneutral information. Troublingly, Study 2 showed that explicit instructions against the use of gender failed to eliminate selection bias, and in fact resulted in even more elaborate justifications.

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Section: Studymentioning

confidence: 94%

Bias in jury selection: justifying prohibited peremptory challenges

Norton¹,

Sommers²,

Brauner³

2007

Behavioral Decision Making

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Second, if prototypes independently predict verdicts much more powerfully than attitudes, we would do well to study interventions that hold promise for altering prototypes. For example, Vicki Smith (1993) demonstrated that mock jurors made more legally relevant decisions after she identified and described jurors' prototypes of particular crimes, refuted these prototypes point by point, and then introduced the legal definition of the crimes. Similarly, if prototypes are guiding jurors' decisions in insanity cases, and these prototypes differ meaningfully from the legal definition of insanity, then altering jurors' insanity prototypes would allow jurors to reach verdicts that are more in line with legal definitions of insanity.…”

Section: Attitudes Toward the Insanity Defensementioning

confidence: 97%

“…Similarly, some researchers have explored strategies for bringing jurors' decisions into greater accord with the law (Smith, 1993). Excluding biased jurors or attempting to make their judgments more legally relevant are important goals: goals that need not invoke personal values about the insanity defense.…”

Section: Attitudes Toward the Insanity Defensementioning

confidence: 98%

“…An understanding of how jurors make decisions can inform efforts to bring verdicts into greater accord with the law. For example, interventions like those developed by Smith (1993) could be used to identify jurors' prototypes, refute prototype features that are inconsistent with legal definitions, and replace them with legally relevant features.…”

Section: The Present Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Constructing insanity: jurors' prototypes, attitudes, and legal decision‐making

Louden

Skeem

2007

Behavioral Sci & The Law

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Research consistently indicates that jurors' intuitive prototypes of insanity and case-relevant attitudes shape their verdicts more strongly than legal definitions of insanity. Based on a sample of 113 prospective jurors, this study was designed to (a) assess the extent to which three prototypes of insanity held by jurors in a past study generalize to a sample of jurors in another state and (b) determine the relative influence of attitudes toward the insanity defense and prototypes of insanity on jurors' case judgments across four insanity case vignettes. Results suggest that jurors' attitudes toward the insanity defense affected case judgments so strongly (r = .41-.61) that they swamped efforts to assess jurors' prototypes of insanity. Further, jurors' prototypes of insanity offered little incremental utility beyond that of insanity defense attitudes. Implications for identifying biased jurors and potential interventions for bringing jurors' decisions into greater accord with the law are discussed.

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“…Rather, it provides a sound, general depiction of the process of juror decision making and story construction. This and other studies (Kuhn et al, 1994;Smith, 1991Smith, , 1993Weinstock & Cronin, 2003), however, suggest that accounts of juror decision making must consider differences not only in representations people hold, but in the cognitive ability and understanding of the means of constructing and justifying knowledge claims that mediate the representational process. As the thinking underlying juror argument skill may be amenable to improvement (Baron, 1985(Baron, , 1993Kuhn, 1999aKuhn, , 2001Stanovich, 1999), understanding jurors' reasoning should lead to optimizing it.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 84%

Evidence coverage and argument skills: cognitive factors in a juror's verdict choice

Weinstock

Flaton

2004

Behavioral Decision Making

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Juror reasoning and verdict choice have been explored variously as functions of argument skill and the overall story representation of the evidence on which verdict choices are based. This study investigates the proportion of testimony covered in the justification of a verdict choice and its relationship with argument skill, narrative explanation or evidence-based argument, and certainty about verdict choice. Each of these variables was also compared with the verdict choice. People serving jury duty justified verdict choices in two abridged jury trials. Individuals were consistent in the relative amount of evidence used in both trials. Argument skills, evidence evaluation type, and evidence synthesis type all accounted for variance in the amount of evidence covered. Evidence coverage, along with argument skills, predicted verdict choice. As expected, those most certain about verdict choice did not use the most evidence. Implications regarding mediating factors in story construction and juror decision making are discussed.

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When prior knowledge and law collide: Helping jurors use the law.

Cited by 102 publications

References 21 publications

Bias in jury selection: justifying prohibited peremptory challenges

Bias in jury selection: justifying prohibited peremptory challenges

Constructing insanity: jurors' prototypes, attitudes, and legal decision‐making

Evidence coverage and argument skills: cognitive factors in a juror's verdict choice

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