Your bias is rubbing off on me: The impact of pretrial publicity and jury type on guilt decisions, trial evidence interpretation, and impression formation.

Abstract

Pretrial publicity (PTP) can bias jurors' decisions. The courts often assume such bias can be ameliorated or reduced by jury deliberations. This study explored the effects of PTP (antiprosecution, antidefense, or no-PTP) and jury type (pure vs. mixed) on mock-jurors'/juries' (N ϭ 495/96) verdicts, impressions, and trial evidence interpretation. PTP affected predeliberation verdicts, with antidefendant PTP jurors being the most likely to render guilty verdicts, and antiprosecution PTP jurors the least likely. At the jury-level, only the pure antiprosecution juries (all jurors read antiprosecution PTP) showed evidence of PTP bias by being the least likely to render guilty verdicts. Comparison of pre-and postdeliberation verdicts revealed that deliberating on pure juries increased PTP's biasing effect on verdicts (group polarization) of antiprosecution PTP jurors, and resulted in more biased credibility ratings for antiprosecution and antidefendant PTP jurors. Regardless of jury type, no-PTP and antidefendant-PTP jurors were less likely to vote guilty after deliberations than prior to them (leniency shift), and their postdeliberation verdicts did not significantly differ. Finally, deliberating on mixed juries resulted in the transfer of PTP-bias from antiprosecution PTP jurors to no-PTP jurors. Implications include that PTP biases jurors' decisions and impressions, and the effect of deliberations on PTP bias may depend on PTP slant, jury type, and case type. Deliberations can increase bias in PTP-exposed jurors deliberating on pure juries and spread PTP bias from PTP-exposed jurors to those not exposed to PTP, but additional research is needed to better understand the circumstances under which each occurs.

What drives a jury’s deliberation? The influence of pretrial publicity and jury composition on deliberation slant and content.

“…Taken together, the findings above suggest that the makeup of the jury influenced the interpretation of trial evidence and how it was discussed during deliberations. This finding is consistent with past research measuring jurors' interpretation of trial evidence as a function of PTP exposure (Ruva & Coy, 2020;Ruva & Guenther, 2017), as well as research examining predecisional distortion (Hope et al, 2004;Ruva et al, 2011). Specifically, pure NV juries had a bias toward discussing trial facts with a prodefense slant, whereas pure ND juries had a bias toward discussing trial facts with a proprosecution slant.…”

“…As noted above, both ND PTP and NV PTP have been found to influence jurors' interpretation of trial evidence (Hope et al, 2004;Ruva & Coy, 2020;Ruva & Guenther, 2017). Importantly, research has found that mock-jurors' discussion and evaluation of trial evidence during deliberations is influenced by PTP exposure (Ruva & Guenther, 2015;Ruva & LeVasseur, 2012).…”

“…Although a good amount of research has explored the effects of pretrial publicity (PTP) on jurors’ decisions and impressions, far less research has explored its effects on juries’ decisions and has rarely explored the content of jury deliberations (Daftary-Kapur et al, 2010; Ruva & Guenther, 2015). Exploring the content of PTP-exposed jurors’ deliberations is important because it has the potential to reveal why judicial instructions (Steblay et al, 2006) and jury deliberations (Kramer et al, 1990; Studebaker & Penrod, 1997; Ruva & Coy, 2020) are often ineffective in combatting PTP bias. Exploring deliberation content can also reveal mechanisms responsible for deliberations increasing juror bias (group polarization; Kerr et al, 1999; Kramer et al, 1990) and spreading bias from PTP-exposed jurors to those not exposed to PTP (Ruva & Guenther, 2017; Ruva & Coy, 2020).…”

Truthiness and law: Nonprobative photos bias perceived credibility in forensic contexts

“…Future research is necessary to determine whether the effect size created from rich, nonprobative information is greater than the small effects Another way to mix probative information with nonprobative information would be to use a pre-trial publicity paradigm. Information from media sources outside the trial has been shown to be confused by mock-jurors for evidence admitted at trial, and when this information was negative, it has been shown to lower the perceived credibility of the accused (Ruva & Coy, 2020;Ruva, McEvoy, & Bryant, 2007).…”

“…Another way to mix probative information with nonprobative information would be to use a pre‐trial publicity paradigm. Information from media sources outside the trial has been shown to be confused by mock‐jurors for evidence admitted at trial, and when this information was negative, it has been shown to lower the perceived credibility of the accused (Ruva & Coy, 2020; Ruva, McEvoy, & Bryant, 2007). Future research could examine the impact of nonprobative and probative pre‐trial publicity (including, but not limited to nonprobative photos), and the resulting impact on perceived credibility.…”