Hannaford-Agor et al.: Jurors and Jury Use of New Media: A Baseline Exploration

Paula Hannaford-Agor, JD, MPP, Dr. David Rottman, and Dr. Nicole Waters, all of the National Center for State Courts, presented a paper entitled Jurors and Jury Use of New Media: A Baseline Exploration, at ICLS 2012: International Conference on Law and Society, held 5-8 June 2012 in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.

Here is the abstract:

The incidence of juror use of advanced communications technologies to conduct independent research on trial-related issues and to communicate with others about the trial while it is underway is a source of increasing concern about the fairness of jury verdicts. In the past two years, at least 90 court opinions have been published addressing allegations of juror misconduct, of which 28 of the verdicts were ultimately overturned. In this paper, the Center for Jury Studies at the National Center for State Courts describes the results of a pilot test of survey instruments and study protocols conducted in 2011 to document the frequency of juror and jury use of new media and its impact on trial deliberations and verdicts. The pilot study sample consisted of completed study packages from 9 civil trials and 6 criminal trials. Six trial judges form 5 states (California, Connecticut, Florida, Michigan, and Texas) participated in the pilot study. Case types included in the pilot study included manslaughter, robbery/theft, drug offenses, sexual assault, and firearm offenses (criminal trials), and automobile tort and dram shop claims (civil trials). Overall, the NCSC obtained very high response rates and good compliance with the study protocols. The surveys of judges and lawyers focused on case and trial characteristics, and opinions about the severity of problems related to juror use of new media. The pilot test also recorded baseline information from more than 500 prospective jurors in those jurisdictions about jurors’ access to contemporary communication technologies, their awareness of restrictions on use of those technologies, and interest in using those technologies during trial and deliberations. Among the key findings from the pilot study were the following:

• Judges and attorneys view juror Internet use as a moderately severe problem.
• Jurors and prospective jurors view themselves as technologically knowledgeable and the overwhelming majority had daily, if not immediate, access to the Internet through a variety of communication devices. This level of access and usage is comparable to national surveys of adult Internet use.
• Most jurors correctly understood judicial admonitions concerning Internet use by jurors, but sizeable minorities either misunderstood or were unsure about those admonitions.
• Sizeable proportions of jurors said that they would have wanted to use the Internet to conduct case-related research or communicate with family and friends. No difference in juror interest levels expressed between civil and criminal trials.
• A small number of jurors and alternates reported that they engaged in “old-fashioned” misconduct (discussions with other jurors, with family/friends), but none of the misconduct involved Internet use. Four jurors in 4 separate trials reported that they relied moderately heavily on information obtained through misconduct.

The paper concludes with suggestions to modify the study methods to address inherent limitations in the methodological approach adopted for the pilot test.

For the full text of the paper, please contact the authors.

Legal Informatics and Legal Communication Papers at ICLS 2012

Several papers on legal informatics or legal communication were presented at ICLS 2012: International Conference on Law and Society, held 5-8 June 2012 in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.

Below are the titles, and links to abstracts, of the legal informatics or legal communication papers — that I’ve been able to identify — that were presented at the conference. If you know of others, please feel free to identify them in the comments.

• Philip Adey (University of Sydney): Expert Psychiatric Evidence in Civil Litigation Involving Allegations of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: The Australian Experience
• Afra Afsharipour (University of California, Davis): Deal Technology
• Seantel A. Anais (Carleton University): Commissioning Credibility: Texts, Testimony, and Truth in Commissions of Inquiry
• Maria Ines Bergoglio (Universidad Nacional de Córdoba): Legitimacy of the Judicial System and Lay Participation in Judicial Decision-Making Processes in Córdoba, Argentina
• Susan Berk-Seligson and Mitchell A. Seligson (Vanderbilt University): The Role of the Police in Crime-Prevention in Central America
• Susan L. Brooks (Drexel University) and David M. Boulding (Private Practice): Using Communication Models to Teach Relational Competencies in Law School
• Christopher Brown (University of Arkansas, Monticello): Death by Any Other Name: Definitionalism’s Impact on America’s Response to Genocide
• Iokepa Casumbal-Salazar (University of Hawaii, Manoa): Monumental Science in Hawaiʻi: U.S. Imperialism, Western Astronomy, and Kanaka Maoli Resistance to Telescopes atop Mauna a Wākea
• Marie Comiskey (University of Michigan): Testing the Comprehensibility of Canadian Jury Instructions and the Efficacy of 3 Comprehension Aids
• Shari S. Diamond, Chair (Northwestern U/American Bar Foundation); Participants: Mei-Tong Chen (Judicial Yuan, Taiwan), Edmundo S. Hendler (University of Buenos Aires), Jae-Hyup Lee (Seoul National University), Richard O. Lempert (University of Michigan), Kwangbai Park (Chungbuk National University), Christoph Rennig (Frankfurt High Court of Appeals): Roundtable–The Role of Professionals in Lay Tribunals
• Soren Frederiksen (York University): Has the Supreme Court’s Philosophy of Science Made It to Canada?
• Masahiro Fujita (Kansai University): Informational Justice in Jury Research: Reframing Prior Jury Researches
• Jeremy Gans (University of Melbourne): Verbal Equivalents to Likelihood Ratios: Limited Probative Value, Strong Prejudicial Effect, Inconclusive Admissibility, Immoderate Usage
• Claire M Germain (University of Florida): Recent Developments in the French Criminal Jury
• Toby S Goldbach (Cornell University): Lay Participation in the Criminal Trial: First Nations Sentencing Circles and Law Reform in Canada
• Jasmine B. Gonzales Rose (University of Pittsburgh): Juror Language Accommodation in Theory and Praxis
• Mel Greenlee (California Appellate Project): Faretta, Marsden, and the Pro-Se Motion: Legal Language on the Skids
• Miranda C. Hallett (Otterbein University) and Michael Jones-Correa (Cornell University): Borders of the Public: Framing the Inclusion and Exclusion of Undocumented Migrants
• Paula Hannaford-Agor (National Center for State Courts), Nicole L. Waters (National Center for State Courts): Juror and Jury Use of New Media: A Baseline Exploration
• Valerie P. Hans (Cornell University): The Jury in Russia: Research and Reform
• Emma M. Henderson (La Trobe University): The Empty Gesture: Jury Directions and the Meaning of Consent in Rape Trials in Victoria, Australia
• Livia Holden (Lahore University of Management Sciences): Non-State Law and Governance in South Asia: Changing Discourse
• Ruth Horowitz (New York University): Experts and Deliberative Democracy
• Syugo Hotta (Meiji University): Linguistic Justice: A Linguistic Analysis of Deliberation
• Takayuki Ii (Hirosaki University): A Gap Before and After Saiban-in Service
• John D Jackson (University College, Dublin) and Nikolai Kovalev (Wilfrid Laurier University): Lay Adjudication in Europe: New Developments
• Natália P Junior (IESP / UERJ): Participatory and Deliberative Democracy from Local to Global: The Example of Women’s Conferences as New Spaces for Mobilization and Proposed Public Policies on Gender in Brazil
• Shiro Kashimura (Kobe University): Telling a Code of Law: Interactive Grounds and Contingencies of Giving Legal Advice in Japan
• Zeynep U. Kasli (University of Washington, Seattle): Who Frames the Rights-Talk and how? Immigrant Associations and Undocumented Immigrants
• Richard Kemp and Kristy Martire (University of New South Wales): A Framework for Testing the Validity of Forensic Science Evidence
• Yumiko Kita (University of Sussex): Intentions and the Reality of the Lay Adjudication in Criminal Trials: Indications from the Introduction of the Japanese Citizen Judge System (Saiban-in Seido) in Terms of a Comparative Criminal Justice Study
• Takanori Kitamura (Tokai University): An Interactional Analysis of Legal Consultations between Lawyers and Clients in Japan
• Danfeng S.V. Koon (University of California, Berkeley): Metaphors and Meaning: The Role of Metaphors in Shaping Organizational Responses to Law
• Janny Leung (University of Hong Kong): The Judge as a Godfather, Scholar, Educator, and Scolding Parent: Judicial Discourse in Cantonese Courtrooms in Hong Kong
• Sean Mallin (University of California, Irvine): Finding Blight: Code Enforcement and “Responsible” Ownership in Post-Katrina New Orleans
• Kristy Martire, Richard Kemp, Ben R. Newell, and Ian Watkins (University of New South Wales): The Correspondence between Expert Intentions and Juror Interpretations: A Likely Story?
• Lisa McElroy (Drexel University): Cameras at the Supreme Court: A Rhetorical Analysis
• Giorgi Meladze (Free University of Tbilisi): Georgian Jury System
• Caren Morrison (Georgia State University): Jurors Under Scrutiny: The Rise of Online Intrusion
• Lisa Mortimer (University of Melbourne): Access to Justice in Timor-Leste: The Role of Local and Non-Local Languages in Timor-Leste’s Formal and Informal Justice Systems
• Margaret van Naerssen (Immaculata University): Miranda Rights: Selected Linguistic Correlates of “Knowingly” and “Intelligently”
• Evelyn Nava-Fischer (Cardiff University): The Role of Regulatory Framings in the Setting and Reception of Global Standards: The Discursive Constitution of International Standards Disputes and of Agri-Food Regulatory Models in India
• Takeshi Nishimura (Shimada & Nishimura Law Office): Transparency of Japanese Criminal Justice System after Saiban-in System Was Implemented
• Karen Petroski (Saint Louis University): Texts, Not Testimony: Rethinking the Legal Use of Non-Legal Expertise
• Anastasia Powell, Nicola Henry, Emma M Henderson, Kirsty Duncanson (La Trobe University) and Asher Flynn (Monash University): The Meanings of “Sex” and “Consent”: History, Discourse, and Impact of Rape Law Reform in Victoria (Australia)
• Richard Powell (Nihon University): Motivations For and Implications Of Changing the Language of the Law: Lessons from Malaysia
• Jeanne M. Powers (Arizona State University): Social Science Research and Judicial Decision Making in School Finance Litigation
• Ming Qi (Jilin University): The People’s Jurors in Chinese Judicial System: Mechanisms and Policies
• John N. Robinson (Northwestern University): Disputing Dispersal: Frames, Repertoires, and Support Structures in Anti-HOPE VI Legal Campaigns
• William Rose (Albion College): Occasional Legislators: Law, Politics, and the Discourse of Judging
• Meredith Rossner (University of Western Sydney): Common Narrative and Community Cohesion: Toward a Micro-Level Theory of Deliberative Dynamics
• Jenny Roth (Lakehead University) and Monica Flegel (Lakehead University): It’s Like Rape: Exploring Social Understandings of Copyright in Debates between Fans and Creative Producers
• Jessica Salerno (U of Illinois, Chicago/American Bar Foundation): Emotion and Jury Deliberation: Does Expressing Emotion Make Stereotyped Holdout Jurors More or Less Persuasive?
• Joseph Sanders (University of Houston): Milward v. Acuity Specialty Products Group: Constructing and Deconstructing Science in the Courtroom
• Tatsuya Sato (Ritsumeikan University): 3D Visualization System for Lay Judges to Understand Legal Disputes on Trial
• Michael J. Shapiro (University of Hawaii): War Crimes and the Justice Dispositif
• Brian G. Slocum (University of the Pacific): Linguistics and Authorial Intent
• Ciara Staunton (National University of Ireland, Galway): Ethics, Embryonic Stem Cell Research, and Democratic Deliberation
• David Tait (University of Western Sydney): Racial Coding of Railway Stations: Jury Deliberation about the Meaning of Place in a Mock Terrorism Trial
• Anthea Fay Vogl (University of Technology, Sydney): Telling Stories from Start to Finish: Exploring the Demand for Narrative in Refugee Testimony
• Kosuke Wakabayashi (Ritsumeikan University): The Effects of the Judicial Instruction which Includes Argument for Evidence Law Regarding Pre-Trial Publicity Information
• Natalie Wallace and Valerie P. Hans (Cornell University): Is There a Lawyer in the “House”? The Portrayal of Medical Negligence in “House, M.D.”
• Mark E. Walters (University of California, San Diego): Legal-Cultural Formations from High Literacy to Secondary Orality
• Zhuoyu Wang (Southwest University of Finance and Economics of China): An Empirical Research on China’s Recent Reforms of Its Mixed Tribunal System
• Matthew J. Wilson (University of Wyoming): Japan’s Evolving Lay Judge System: Room for Improvement or Even Expansion?
• Toru Yamada (Cornell University): A Conceptual Administrative Manual: Discursive Formations in Japan’s Heritage Nomination Process

Sato on 3D Visualization System for Lay Judges to Understand Legal Disputes on Trial

Professor Dr. Tatsuya Sato of Ritsumeikan University presented a paper entitled 3D Visualization System for Lay Judges to Understand Legal Disputes on Trial, at ICLS 2012: International Conference on Law and Society, held 5-8 June 2012 in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.

The paper was presented as part of a panel entitled Informational Justice and Criminal Justice: Empirical Approach for Assessing Fair Judgment in the Criminal Justice System.

Here is the abstract of the paper:

In Japan, the mixed jury system, the SAIBAN-IN trial system, was brought in on May 21st, 2009. This is a mixed jury system, which comprises three professional and six lay judges. The Saiban-in trial system employs the participation of the general public in the criminal justice system. In lay judge systems in Japan, citizens are selected at random and so cognitive support for these citizens is needed to facilitate the process. Visualization does not only consist of recording or replaying the raw material, but of presenting meta-coded information along with original data. The KTH cube is a promising tool for managing this visualization. The KACHINA (Knowledge Archiving with the Collaboration of Human and Intelligent Network Agents) cube (KC) has been developed as a method for facilitating the visualization of vast amounts of information using a three-dimensional (3D) viewing template. The simple idea underlying the KC is that of visualizing information using a “cube,” that is, a shape with three dimensions. This system represents a region as a virtual 3D space that consists of a 2D map with a time axis. The KC can be adapted to include not only geographic information but also non-geographic information. To handle non-geographic information, a conceptual map, not a 2D geographical map, should be used. A conceptual map is a figure that expresses the development of a story or event. The KC uses this tool to visualize the aggregation sequence of many statements made during interrogation. The 1st Dimension is used to show the discrepancies between the stories of the prosecution and defense in this case. The 2nd Dimension is used to show the timeline of the events of the crime according to the prosecution’s story. Every story told by prosecutors has a unique time line and events relevant to the crime should fit within this timeline. However, it must be noted that this story is a product of the prosecutors’ inference. The 3rd dimension shows the time when each defendant gives his or her statement. All investigation records from defendants have a unique position of alignment inside the cube as a fragment. Thus each person either “confessed” or did not confess at a unique time. In this presentation, I will illustrate our approach with a case in which multiple defendants had multiple statements. The KTH cube can never tell us which confession is true. It is a tool which provides cognitive assistance, functioning as an instructional scaffold (Bruner, 1978; Applebee and Langer, 1983) for everyone in court.