scholarly journals How Punishment Severity Affects Jury Verdicts: Evidence from Two Natural Experiments

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 36-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Bindler ◽  
Randi Hjalmarsson
Keyword(s):  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Jury Decision Making ◽  
Natural Experiments ◽  
English History ◽  
Difference In Differences ◽  
Jury Verdicts ◽  
Jury Behavior ◽  
Old Bailey ◽  
Jury Decision

This paper studies the effect of punishment severity on jury decision making using archival data from London’s Old Bailey Criminal Court from 1772 to 1871. We exploit two natural experiments in English history, resulting in sharp decreases in punishment severity: the offense-specific abolition of capital punishment and the temporary halt of penal transportation during the American Revolution. Using difference-in-differences to study the former and a pre-post design for the latter, we find a large, significant, and permanent impact on jury behavior: juries are more likely to convict overall and across crime categories. Moreover, the effect size differs with defendants’ gender. (JEL K41, K42, N43)

THE DYNAMICS OF JURY DECISION-MAKING: A CASE STUDY

1983 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Gary Howard ◽  
David Redfering
Keyword(s):  
Significant Relationship ◽  
Psychological Characteristics ◽  
Jury Decision Making ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Religious Ideology ◽  
Jury Verdicts ◽  
Jury Behavior ◽  
Jury Decision ◽  
Intercorrelation Matrix

The legal profession is replete with assertions about the relationships of social, economic, and psychological characteristics to jury verdicts. The purpose of this research was to identify and test some of these concepts. A survey of jurors serving on criminal cases was conducted which incorporated pertinent socio-economic, demographic, psychological and experiential factors. An intercorrelation matrix and a linear step-wise regression model were employed to identify those variables which showed a statistically significant relationship to a trial vote of guilty. None of the notions of attorneys regarding socio-economic characteristics had a significant relationship to jury verdicts; however, items concerning authoritarianism, religious ideology, and prior experience with courts did correlate with jury behavior.

Jury Decision Making in the Context of Excuse Defenses

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher S. Peters ◽  
James Michael Lampinen ◽  
William Blake Erickson ◽  
Lindsey Nicole Sweeney ◽  
Brad Zeiler ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Jury Decision Making ◽  
Jury Decision

Making a biased jury decision: Using the Steven Avery murder case to investigate potential influences in jury decision-making.

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 429-436
Author(s):  
Lourdes Rodriguez ◽  
Stephanie Agtarap ◽  
Adriel Boals ◽  
Nathan T. Kearns ◽  
Lee Bedford
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Jury Decision Making ◽  
Jury Decision

An Undergraduate Course in Psychology and the Law

1987 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 238-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edith Greene ◽  
Edith Greene
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Dispute Resolution ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Alternative Dispute Resolution ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Plea Bargaining ◽  
Jury Decision Making ◽  
Teaching Aids ◽  
The Law ◽  
Jury Decision

This article describes a course that bridged the disciplines of clinical and experimental psychology and the law. The course included discussion of issues in criminal law, such as the psychology of policing, the reliability of confessions, victimization, plea bargaining, jury decision making, and alternative dispute resolution, and in civil law, such as civil commitment, predicting dangerousness, and child custody. Course objectives, requirements, and teaching aids are outlined, and some thoughts on integrating these diverse topics are included.

scholarly journals The Two–dimensional Model of Jury Decision Making

2010 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-42
Author(s):  
Manfred J. Holler
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Utility Maximization ◽  
Simple Majority ◽  
Jury Decision Making ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
Dimensional Model ◽  
Single Group ◽  
Voting Game ◽  
Conflicting Interests ◽  
Jury Decision

Abstract This paper discusses a two-dimensional jury model. It combines the idea of winning a maximum of votes in a voting game with utility maximization that derives from the winning proposition. The model assumes a first mover, the plaintiff, and a second-mover, the counsel of the defendant. Typically, these agents represent parties that have conflicting interests. Here they face a jury that consists of three groups of voters such that no single group has a majority of votes. Each group is characterized by homogeneous preferences on three alternatives that describe the possible outcomes. The outcome is selected by a simple majority of the jury members. The agents are interested in both gaining the support of a majority of jury members and seeing their preferred alternative selected as outcome. It will be demonstrated that equilibrium decision making can be derived for this model.

Judges Versus Juries

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Saks ◽  
Barbara A. Spellman
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Great Majority ◽  
Background Knowledge ◽  
Social Resources ◽  
Good News ◽  
Jury Decision Making ◽  
Factual Information ◽  
Strength Of Evidence ◽  
Information Studies ◽  
Jury Decision

The rules of evidence that have evolved prevent lawyers from using the most powerful, yet the most informationally empty, techniques of persuasion. The rules compel litigators to fight their battles by presenting juries with information. Studies conducted on jury decision-making indicate that evidence—factual information about the events in dispute—is the most potent force driving the verdicts of trials. Studies show that judges and jurors would reach the same verdicts in four-fifths of trials; that similarity is because they are responding to the same information. Studies of differences among jurors in demographics, attitudes, personalities, and knowledge have found that in the great majority of cases such differences matter very little to the outcomes of cases. Variation in the strength of evidence influences decisions far more than who is hearing the evidence. That is good news if we want trials to produce rational decisions based on evidence. The focus on evidence makes a juror’s job a demanding one, presenting challenges to understanding, remembering, evaluating, drawing inferences, and using evidence (in conjunction with the law) to reach conclusions about a disputed matter. Working as a group helps. Groups have advantages over individuals: they possess more cognitive and social resources such as wider background knowledge and experience, the ability of multiple minds to remember, to correct each other’s errors, to think about the proper meaning of the evidence, and so on.

Formal Pattern in Jury Decision Making

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Inmaculada De la Fuente ◽  
Ana Ortega ◽  
Ignacio Martín ◽  
Humberto Trujillo
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Jury Decision Making ◽  
Jury Decision
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