Lynch & Haney on Capital Jury Deliberation: Effects on Death Sentencing, Comprehension, and Discrimination

Professor Mona Lynch of the University of California, Irvine School of Social Ecology, and Professor Craig Haney of the University of California, Santa Cruz Department of Psychology, have published Capital Jury Deliberation: Effects on Death Sentencing, Comprehension, and Discrimination, 33 Law and Human Behavior 481 (2009). Here is the abstract:

“This study focused on whether and how deliberations affected the comprehension of capital penalty phase jury instructions and patterns of racially discriminatory death sentencing. Jury-eligible subjects were randomly assigned to view one of four versions of a simulated capital penalty trial in which the race of defendant (Black or White) and the race of victim (Black or White) were varied orthogonally. The participants provided their initial ‘straw’ sentencing verdicts individually and then deliberated in simulated 4–7 person ‘juries.’ Results indicated that deliberation created a punitive rather than lenient shift in the jurors’ death sentencing behavior, failed to improve characteristically poor instructional comprehension, did not reduce the tendency for jurors to misuse penalty phase evidence (especially, mitigation), and exacerbated the tendency among White mock jurors to sentence Black defendants to death more often than White defendants.”

Rose et al. on Jurors’ Attention to the “Offstage” of Trials

Professor Mary R. Rose of the University of Texas at Austin School of Law and Department of Sociology, and colleagues, have published Goffman on the Jury: Real Jurors’ Attention to the “Offstage” of Trials, forthcoming in Law and Human Behavior. Here is the abstract:

“Social psychologist Erving Goffman, in his classic work The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, provides a framework that explains why jurors may turn their attention at the courthouse to information not formally presented from the witness stand. We dub this ‘offstage observation,’ a type of juror behavior that has not been systematically examined empirically. Analyzing a unique data source of 50 actual jury deliberations in civil trials, we find that jurors do look to the offstage in evaluating the claims of the parties. However, in contrast to predictions, these observations played a surprisingly minor role in the jury deliberation process.”

Kim, Barak, & Shelton: Two New Articles on the “CSI Effect”

Professor Young S. Kim and Professor Gregg Barak, both of the Eastern Michigan University Department of Sociology, Anthropology & Criminology, and The Honorable Donald E. Shelton, Circuit Judge of the 22nd Circuit Court of Michigan, have published two articles reporting results of empirical research on the so-called “CSI Effect” upon jurors. Here are the citations and abstracts:

Examining the “CSI-effect” in the Cases of Circumstantial Evidence and Eyewitness Testimony: Multivariate and Path Analyses, 37 Journal of Criminal Justice 452 (2009) (click here for full-text of published version) (click here for full-text of preprint on bepress).

• ABSTRACT: “As part of a larger investigation of the changing nature of juror behavior in the context of technology development, this study examined important questions unanswered by previous studies on the ‘CSI-effect.’ In answering such questions, the present study applied multivariate and path analyses for the first time. The results showed that (a) watching CSI dramas had no independent effect on jurors’ verdicts, (b) the exposure to CSI dramas did not interact with individual characteristics, (c) different individual characteristics were significantly associated with different types of evidence, and (d) CSI watching had no direct effect on jurors’ decisions, and it had an indirect effect on conviction in the case of circumstantial evidence only as it raised expectations about scientific evidence, but it produced no indirect effect in the case of eyewitness testimony only. Finally, implications of the present study as well as for future research on the ‘CSI-effect’ on jurors are discussed.”

An Indirect-Effects Model of Mediated Adjudication: The CSI Myth, the Tech Effect, and Metropolitan Jurors’ Expectations for Scientific Evidence, forthcoming in Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law.

• ABSTRACT: “Part I of this article defines the ‘CSI effect’, given that the phrase has come to have many different meanings ascribed to it. It emphasizes the epistemological importance of first describing the effect of the ‘CSI effect’ as observed in juror behavior documented in a new study conducted in Wayne County (Detroit), Michigan, and then looking at causative factors that may be related to an explanation of those observed effects. Part II describes the methodology of the Wayne County study, provides a descriptive analysis of Wayne County jurors, and compares the jurors demographically to the Washtenaw County jurors who were surveyed in 2006. Part III analyzes the Wayne County study results with respect to jurors’ expectations and demands for scientific evidence. The Wayne County study findings reinforce the earlier Washtenaw findings of heightened juror expectations and demands for scientific evidence in almost every respect. This most recent analysis of the impact of viewing CSI or similar programs on jurors in Wayne County likewise reinforces the conclusions from the earlier Washtenaw County study that there is no such causative relationship between watching CSI and the heightened expectations and demands of jurors. Part IV explores the nature of the ‘tech effect’ as one causative factor for those heightened juror expectations and demands as an alternative to the ‘CSI effect.’ It also proposes an indirect-effects model of juror influences that combines the perception of a ‘CSI effect” with the ‘tech effect’ of modern scientific advances and the generalized effect of media portrayals about crime. This model triangulates the potential interactive effects of a ‘CSI effect’ myth with the likelihood of a ‘tech effect’ in the context of the ‘mass mediated effects’ of law and order or crime and justice news. The results of regression analyses of data from Wayne County jurors provide some support for the 2006 study’s suggestion of a ‘tech effect’ — that the broader changes in popular culture brought about by rapid scientific and technological advances and widespread dissemination of information about them is a more likely explanation for increased juror expectations and demand for scientific evidence in the courtroom than simply viewing CSI or related programs. Part V provides an overview of contemporary perspectives of ‘mass-mediated effects’ on public attitudes, behaviors, and expectations as a prelude to the suggested Indirect-effects Model of Mediated Adjudication.”

Many thanks to Judge Shelton and Professor Barak for pointing to the full-text and abstracts of these articles.

HT @TheJuryExpert.