Legal Informatics and Legal Communication Papers @ LSA 2013

Here is a selected list of papers on legal informatics or legal communication presented at LSA 2013: Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, held 31 May-2 June 2013, in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. (Click here for the conference program.) (Click here for abstracts of the papers on deliberation.) (If you know of other legal informatics or legal communication papers presented at the conference but not listed here, please feel free to mention them in the comments):

• Janet Ainsworth (Seattle University): Contestation over Knowledge in Courtroom Discourse: The Expert Witness on the Stand
• Stephanie L. Albertson (Indiana University Southeast): The Influence of Jurors’ Race on Perceptions of Complex Scientific Evidence
• Benoit Aubert, Gilbert Babin, and Hamza Aqallal (HEC Montreal): Providing an Architecture Framework for Cyberjustice
• Susan A. Bandes (DePaul University): Victim Impact Evidence and Gruesome Photos: Reconsidering the Probative, the Prejudicial, and the Emotional
• Vanessa Beaton (University of Ottawa): A Missing Link in the Literature: Towards an Interdisciplinary Analysis of Justice Sector Technology
• Rubens Becak, and Joao Victor R Longhi (University of Sao Paulo): The Collaborative Legislative Procedure: Participativity Through the Internet during the Draft Bill Number 2.126/2011, Brazilian Civil Rights Framework for the Internet
• Alyse Bertenthal (University of California – Irvine): Law in Translation: The Construction of Legal Narratives
• Josh Blackman (South Texas College of Law, Houston): Robot, Esq.
• Jenny Temechko Braun (University of Virginia): Writing the Terms of Indian Country: Sherrill v. Oneida and Colonial Copyright Narratives
• Clara de Brauw (Athena Insitute, VU University): How Have Recent Changes in Dutch Public Law Affected Opposition Movements Against Policy Decisions? The Case of Public Participation in Land-Use Decision-Making
• Jacquelyn Burkell (University of Western Ontario) and Jane Bailey (University of Ottawa): Implementing Courtroom Technology: The Canadian Perspective
• Ellen S. Cohn, Rick J. Trinkner, and Lindsey Marie Cole (University of New Hampshire): Legitimacy and Normative Status as Mediators between Legal Reasoning and Adolescent Rule-Violating Behavior
• Lindsey Marie Cole and Ellen S. Cohn (University of New Hampshire): Jury Room Reasoning: The Use of Evidence, Counterfactual Thinking, and Emotion in Jury Deliberations
• Marie Comiskey (University of Michigan): A Transnational Approach to Juror Comprehension: Comparing Canadian and American Jury Instructions and Jury Aids
• Robin Conley (Marshall University): Agents of the State: Jurors’ Negotiations of Accountability in Death Penalty Decisions
• Richard Cornes (School of Law, Essex University): Darkness upon the Face of the Earth: The Communications Challenge Facing the United Kingdom’s New Supreme Court
• Yasmin Dawood (University of Toronto): Democracy, Deliberation, and Participation
• Anya Degenshein (Northwestern University): Shared Meaning, Shrouded Legitimacy, and Ruptured Alliances: The Creation of Prosecutorial Power in the Legislative Arena
• Clarissa Diniz Guedes (Law School Federal University of Juiz de Fora): Brazilian Civil Procedure in the Age of Visual Media: A Case-Law Review on Video Evidence
• Gregory Dolin (University of Baltimore): Speaking of Science: Introducing Notice-and-Comment into the Legislative Process
• Laurence Dumoulin (CNRS – ISP): What is “Justice at a Distance”? Spaces, Symbols and Routines in Remote Court Hearing
• Dana D. Dyson, and Kathryn Schellenberg, University of Michigan-Flint: Access to Justice: The Readability of Legal Aid Internet Services
• Neal Feigenson (Quinnipiac University): Opinions Gone Wild: Multimedia Links in Judicial Opinions
• Roberto Freitas Filho (Centro de Ensino Unificado de Brasilia), and Luciana Barbosa Musse (Centro Universitario de Brasilia – UniCEUB): Methodology of Analysis of Decision – MAD
• Masahiro Fujita (Kansai University), and Syugo Hotta (Meiji University): Trust in Legal System in Japan: An Internet Survey
• Nancy Gertner (Harvard law School): The Jury and Social Networking
• Julie Globokar (Kent State University): Narratives and Counter-Narratives Surrounding the Passage of the Federal Probation Act of 1925
• Catherine M. Grosso (Michigan State University): Information Seeking in Voir Dire: Could Modifying Juror Questioning Reduce Jury Selection Racial Disparities
• Branislav Hazucha, Hsiao-Chien Liu, and Toshihide Watabe (Hokkaido University): Copyright, Protection Measures and Their Acceptance by Consumers in Japan
• Syugo Hotta (Meiji University): A Neuroscientific Analysis of Language Used in Japanese Mixed-Jury Trials: Preliminary Study
• Kathleen E. Hull and Penny Edgell (University of Minnesota): Cultural Schemas of Law in Talk about Social Controversies
• Scott Ingram (High Point University), and Jennifer Banks (UTS: Insearch): The Power of the Common Law: Judicial Language in Australia, the UK and the US
• Rafael M. Iorio Filho (Universidade Estcio de S), Fernanda Duarte (Universidade Federal Fluminense): Constitutional Law and Discourse: Representations of Brazilian Legal Culture
• Ross Kleinstuber (University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown), Heather V Zaykowski (University of Massachusetts Boston), and Caitlin McDonough (Umass Boston): Judicial Narratives of Ideal and Deviant Victims in Judges’ Capital Sentencing Decisions
• Janny Leung (University of Hong Kong): Justice According to the Powerless: The Case of Unrepresented Litigation in Hong Kong
• Karen Levy (Princeton University): The Automation of Compliance: Techno-Legal Regulation in the U.S. Trucking Industry
• Wenjie Liao (University of Minnesota): Why Chinese People Obey the Law: A Survey of Legal Compliance
• Mona Lynch (University of California, Irvine): Empathy, Anger and Death: Racialized Emotional Expressions in Mock Capital Jury Deliberations
• Giampiero Lupo (Research Institute on Judicial Systems (IRSIG-CNR) – National Research Council of Italy): Explaining Successes and Failures of E-Justice Services in Europe: The Cases of Money Claim on-Line, Trial Online, e-Barreaux and e-Codex
• David Marrani (University of Essex): Cameras in Courts: Between Voyeurism and Transparency
• Shelby A. McKinzey and Sara Steen (University of Colorado, Boulder): Understanding the Meaning of Evidence in the Use of “Evidence-Based Practices”: Drug Policy Reform in Colorado
• Jesse Merriam (Johns Hopkins University): The Rule of Law as a Language Game: A Wittgensteinian Look at Stare Decisis and Legal Consistency
• Susan Moffitt (Brown University): Making Policy Public: Developing Bureaucratic Administration through Advisory Committee Public Deliberation
• Mami Hiraike Okawara (Takasaki City University of Economics), and Kazuhiko Higuchi (Cosmos Law Firm): A Discourse Analysis of Sakurai’s Confession Statement of the Fukawa Case
• Gregory S. Parks (Wake Forest University): Predicting Racial Bias in Tort Jury Decision Making
• Liana Jean Pennington (Northeastern University): Legal Mobilization, Voice, and the Invocation of Justice Frames within the Juvenile Delinquency Court Process
• Usha Rao (Independent Scholar): Speaking from Somewhere: Locating the Judicial Voice in the Judgment
• Alexander E Reger (University of Connecticut): Discourse and the Law: The Case of Gerald Ford and the Vietnam Amnesty Debates
• Vicente Riccio (Law School Federal University of Juiz de Fora): Brazilian Criminal Procedure in the Age of Visual Media: A Case-Law Review on Video Evidence
• Tanina Rostain (Georgetown Law Center): What are Lawyers Good for?
• Jessica M. Salerno (Arizona State University): How Race, Gender, and Emotion Expression Affect Holdout Jurors’ Influence during Jury Deliberation
• Damien Scalia (University of Geneva): International Criminal Justice: Perception of Legitimacy by the Accused
• Samuel R. Sommers (Tufts University): On Juries, Deliberations, and Racial Diversity
• Simon Stern (University of Toronto): Fictional Origins of the Reasonable Person
• Lupita Svensson (Ersta Skndal University): Welfare and Law Interacting: Utilising a Socio-Legal Text Analysis Model
• Stella Szantova Giordano (Quinnipiac University School of Law): We Have to Get By: Court Interpreting and Its Impact on Access to Justice for Non-Native English Speakers
• Justine Tinkler (University of Georgia) and Sarah Becker (Louisiana State University): “It is Just a Part of Going to Bars”: College Students’ Attitudes about the Legal Regulation of Unwanted Sexual Contact in Public Drinking Settings
• Tom Tyler (Yale University): Values and Law-Related Behavior
• Margaret van Naerssen (Immaculata University): Convincing Judges of Validity Socio-Cultural Issues in Linguistic Analyses
• Elizabeth S. Vartkessian, and Christopher E. Kelly (University at Albany): Capital Improvements? Juror Decision-Making in Texas Death Penalty Trials before and after Penry v. Lynaugh
• Neil Vidmar (Duke University): The Growing Use of Biological Predisposition Evidence and Its Implications for the Jury System
• Richard Weisman (York University): Being and Doing: An Approach to the Social and Legal Regulation of Remorse
• John Zeleznikow (Victoria University), and Pompeu Casanovas (Autonomous University of Barcelona): Online Dispute Resolution and Models of Relational Law and Justice

For abstracts of papers, please search the conference program. For full text of papers, please contact the authors.

Gastil et al.: The Impact of Jury Service on Attitudes Toward Legal Institutions and the Implications for International Jury Reform

Professor Dr. John Gastil, Professor Dr. Hiroshi Fukurai, Vice Chancellor Kent Anderson, and Dr. Mark Nolan have published Seeing Is Believing: The Impact of Jury Service on Attitudes Toward Legal Institutions and the Implications for International Jury Reform, Court Review, 48(4), pp. 124-130 (2012).

Here is the abstract:

The United States jury system is unique in the world in the frequency of its use and its symbolic significance as a democratic institution. [...] It is ironic that so little is known about what impact the jury system as a democratic institution has on the citizenry who serve as jurors. Improving our understanding of the jury’s impact is vital, as many nations may choose to adopt or reject the jury based partly on beliefs about how jury service shapes the civic beliefs and actions of citizen-jurors. In particular, legal scholars Kent Anderson and Mark Nolan point out that the proponents of Japan’s new “quasi-jury” system marshaled two arguments in favor of greater public participation in the Japanese legal system — better and equitable legal outcomes and “the belief that it promotes a more democratic society.”

Do juries, in fact, have such impacts? One theoretical justification for believing juries can help to sustain democracy comes from the work of small-group-communication scholar Ernest Bormann. His Symbolic Convergence Theory has helped to demonstrate that repeated, salient cultural practices can establish habitual ways of communicating in groups. As Bormann explains, successions of otherwise unremarkable public and educational group meetings, along with instruction about effective group behavior, over the course of decades gradually built the “public-discussion model” that emerged in the United States in the 20th century (and persists to this day).

For nearly a century, that cultural model has shaped how people talk and think about group problem solving in the U.S. In a similar way, the cultural-institutional legacy of jury service may be public confidence in jury deliberation itself, as well as in the judges who oversee the process. Thus, we theorize that jury service promotes public support for the larger legal process in which citizens participate as jurors. If true, this finding would have tremendous significance for other nations — including Japan, Taiwan, and Mexico — that are considering implementing the all-citizen jury system, because the reforms they implement could be expected to bolster public faith and confidence in the legal system itself.

Legal Communication Papers @ NCA 2012

Many papers on legal communication were presented at NCA 2012: The 98th Annual Convention of the National Communication Association, held November 15-18, 2012 in Orlando, Florida, USA. Here is a list of those I could identify. For abstracts and full text, please contact the authors. (If you know of other papers on legal communication presented at NCA 2012, please feel free to identify them in the comments to this post. Click here for the complete NCA 2012 program.)

• Daniel Bergan and Richard T. Cole, Michigan State University: Call Your Legislator: The Impact of Citizen Contacts on Legislative Voting
• Mike Bergmaier, Penn State University: From Miscegenation to Contemporary Marriage Equality: Marriage as a Function of Ideological State Apparatuses
• Lacey Brown, University of West Florida, Chair: Panel: Trayvon Martin and COMMunity: Exploring the Interpretive Frames of the “Stand Your Ground” Law in Shaping 21st Century American Communities
• Kathryn A. Cady and Kerith M. Woodyard, Northern Illinois University: All the Working Woman’s Friends: Protective Labor Legislation and the Early ERA Controversy
• Peter Odell Campbell, Univ of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign: The Abject of Community: The Majoritarian ‘Fourth Persona’ in U.S. Equality Rhetoric
• Kelly Carr, University of Baltimore: Inventing Continuity While Enacting Change: The Supreme Court Opinion Writing Process
• Michael S. Chouinard, Florida State University: Judge or Activist? Vaughn Walker and the Overturning of Proposition 8
• Hayley Jeanne Cole, Univ of Missouri, Columbia: Same Sex Marriage Ads: Don’t Mention It: A Content Analysis of the No on Prop 8 Ads
• Josh Compton and Paul Klaas, Dartmouth College: Oh, the Places Legal Rhetoric can Go: Prosecuting and Defending Characters of Dr. Seuss’s Bartholomew and the Oobleck
• Christopher R. Darr, Indiana Univ, Kokomo, and Harry C. Strine IV, Bloomsburg University: Partisanship, Ideology and Advice and Consent: A Content Analysis of Incivility in Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings
• Daniel Emery, University of Oklahoma: Property Crimes: Castle Laws, the 2008 Mortgage Crisis, and Privatization of Public Space
• Jerri Faris, Purdue University: Celebrating COMMunity with Ex-prisoners: Engaged Communication Scholarship in a Reentry Court
• Ryan P. Fuller, Univ of California, Santa Barbara: Agenda Denial Strategies in Regulating Vertical Integration: The Case of California SB 1765
• Joshua Gonzalez, University of Iowa: Undignified: Poverty and Personhood in the 1996 Welfare Reform Debates
• Nichola Gutgold, Penn State Univ, Lehigh Valley: The Enactment Rhetoric of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
• Leslie J. Harris, Univ of Wisconsin, Milwaukee: Spousal Correction or Spousal Cruelty? The Rhetoric of Nineteenth-Century Domestic Violence
• Amy Hasinoff, McGill University: Social Media and Sexuality: The Missing Discourse of Consent in New Sexting Legislation
• Erik Jimenez, California State University, Los Angeles: Are You a Mexican? Investigating the Devastating Implications of Alabama’s Hammon-Beason (HB) 56
• Katherine R. Knobloch, University of Washington, and John W. Gastil, Penn State University: Civic (Re)Socialization: The Educative Effects of Deliberative Participation
• Jeff Kurr, Baylor University: President Obama’s Rhetorical Pivot in Avoiding the Detainment of Deliberation over Closing the Detention Facilities at Guantanamo Bay
• Derek Lackaff, Elon University: Open Governance Experiments in the Icelandic Context
• Owen H. Lynch, Southern Methodist University: Lowering the Bar or the Important Role of Humor in The Legal Community
• Carol L. Mammel, University of the Fraser Valley: The Osoyoos Indian Band, Canadian Wildlife Service, and the Species at Risk Act: Lack of consultation, and perpetuation of underdevelopment on reserves
• Bryan J. McCann, Wayne State Univ: Between Thugs and Innocents: Racialized Violence and the Perogative of ‘Self Defense’ in the Trayvon Martin Case
• Robert Mills, Northwestern University: The Harmonious Vocalics of Judicial Unanimity: Authorship and Legitimacy in Cooper v. Aaron
• Jay Reynolds Patterson, Georgia State University: Contemporary Legal Discourse and the Graeco-Roman Tradition: The 2009 OJ Simpson Kidnapping Trial
• Carlo A. Pedrioli, Barry University: Constructing Modern-day U.S. Legal Education through Rhetoric: Langdell, Ames, and the Scholar Model of the Law Professor Persona
• Preconference: Reading the Rhetoric of Civil Rights Sit-Ins
• Alessandra Renzi, Ryerson University: Get Out of My Park: Occupying Discourse on Public Use
• Robert Richards, Penn State University: Legal Narrative in the Citizens’ Panel: Identifying Theories to Explain Storytelling in a Small Group Deliberation about Ballot Initiatives
• Brandi Dale Rogers, University of Wisconsin, Madison: Science, Law, and the Argumentative Antecedents of Fetal Personhood: A Rhetorical Analysis of Early Prenatal Torts
• Clarke Rountree, University of Alabama, Huntsville: Reversing Course: Supreme Court Overruling in an Early Admiralty Case
• Clariza Ruiz De Castilla, University of Texas, Austin: Citizenship in the Sunshine State: Florida News Coverage on Arizona’s SB 1070
• Kristina Ruiz-Mesa, Univ of Colorado, Boulder: COMMunities of Practice and Discourses of a DREAM: How Congress and Fox News Represent ‘Others’ within the DREAM Act
• Susan H. Sarapin, Troy University: Forget about It! The Ironic Effects of Instructions to Disregard Perry, Ben, Gil, and Ducky
• Susan H. Sarapin, Troy University: Toward a Causal Explanation of ‘The CSI Effect’: Self-efficacy as Mediator between Fictional Crime-TV Exposure and Verdict Certainty
• Joseph Sery, University of San Francisco: ‘Fruit from the Poisonous Tree’: The Rhetorical Strategy behind Mapp v. Ohio
• Rohini Singh, Univ of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign: Turning the Tables: Refutation by Reversal in Clarence Darrow’s Plea for Leopold and Loeb
• Jeff Swift, North Carolina State University: The Invisible Hand of the Speech Marketplace: The Supreme Court’s Currency Manipulation
• Elycia M. Taylor, Catherine Knight Steele, and Emilie Lucchesi, University of Illinois, Chicago: Protective or Oppressive? Analyzing Death Penalty Framing
• Dave Tell, University of Kansas, and Eric C. Miller, Penn State University: Rhetoric and Judicial Activism: The Case of Hillary Goodridge v. Department of Public Health
• Mary Lynn L. Veden, Univ of Arkansas, Fayetteville: The Alchemy and Antirrhetic of West Coast Hotel v. Parrish
• Rachel Avon A. Whidden, Lake Forest College: Proving Science in Court: Vaccine Injury Payouts and the Legitimization of the MMR-Autism Connection

Gastil et al. Win NCA Book Award for The Jury and Democracy

Professor Dr. John Gastil of the Penn State University Department of Communication Arts and Sciences; Dr. E. Pierre Deess of the New Jersey Institute of Technology; Dean Philip J. Weiser of the University of Colorado School of Law; and Cindy Simmons, Esq., M.A., of the Penn State University College of Communications, have been awarded the National Communication Association Group Communication Division Ernest Bormann Research Award for the Outstanding Book for 2011, for The Jury and Democracy: How Jury Deliberation Promotes Civic Engagement and Political Participation (Oxford University Press, 2010).

Gastil et al. on The Jury and Democracy

Professor Dr. John Gastil of the University of Washington Department of Communication; Dr. E. Pierre Deess of the New Jersey Institute of Technology; Professor Philip J. Weiser of the University of Colorado School of Law; and Cindy Simmons, Esq., M.A., of the University of Washington Department of Communication, have published The Jury and Democracy: How Jury Deliberation Promotes Civic Engagement and Political Participation (2010). Here is a summary:

Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill, and the U.S. Supreme Court have all alleged that jury service promotes civic and political engagement, yet none could prove it. Finally, The Jury and Democracy provides compelling systematic evidence to support this view.

Drawing from in-depth interviews, thousands of juror surveys, and court and voting records from across the United States, the authors show that serving on a jury can trigger changes in how citizens view themselves, their peers, and their government–and can even significantly increase electoral turnout among infrequent voters. Jury service also sparks long-term shifts in media use, political action, and community involvement.

In an era when involved Americans are searching for ways to inspire their fellow citizens, The Jury and Democracy offers a plausible and realistic path for turning passive spectators into active political participants.

The book includes reports of research produced by The Jury and Democracy Project, based at the University of Washington.

Hanson on Jurats as Adjudicators in the Channel Islands and the Importance of Lay Participation

Timothy Hanson of Hanson Renouf has published Jurats as Adjudicators in the Channel Islands and the Importance of Lay Participation, 39 Common Law World Review 250-282 (2010) (Issue No. 3). Here is the abstract:

Many legal systems place great importance upon lay persons adjudicating in courts and tribunals but how those persons are chosen, the precise role that they perform and the qualities that they are supposed to bring to the legal process are issues that often excite lively debate. This paper is about the Channel Islands, which enjoy as part of their legal systems adjudicators known as Jurés-Justiciers or ‘Jurats’ who normally have no legal qualifications or training before being able to take up such posts. Historically, the Jurats have played an essential part in the Channel Islands being able to maintain their curious constitutional position in the British Isles by their knowledge and application of the customary laws prevailing in each island and their jealous protection of such customs from outside interference. Nevertheless, in the twenty-first century, when legal principle from one jurisdiction can more readily influence the development of law in another related system and public expectations are no less demanding than elsewhere in the British Isles, it is important to reassess the role of the Jurats. In so doing, it will be readily appreciated that the Jurat system, albeit in need of some reform, is no mere curiosity of the past but something of which Channel Islanders can be justifiably proud.

Gray & Barnett on Sustainable Juries: Thinking Outside Peer Jury Criminal Trials

Professor Dr. Anthony Gray and Eola Barnett, LLB, both of the University of Southern Queensland School of Law, have published Sustainable Juries: Thinking Outside Peer Jury Criminal Trials, 20 Journal of Judicial Administration 18-38 (July 2010) (Issue No. 1). Here is the abstract:

Debate continues about the efficacy of the continued use of juries in courts, and recent years have seen a reduction (in Australia) in the occasions on which a jury is used in criminal trials, as well as the abolition of the requirement for unanimity. On the other hand, the use of juries has a long history dating prior to the Magna Carta, and is of great historical importance in terms of American independence. Significant research indicates that public confidence in and perceptions of the criminal justice system improve when a citizen has contact with the legal system through jury service, and there is something seen as inherently right in having a person in a society being judged by their peers.

This article focuses on weaknesses with the jury system as currently utilised, including evidence that jurors sometimes do not understand fundamental legal principles like beyond reasonable doubt, that contrary to the ideal, jurors may not in fact represent a true cross-section of society and are ‘chosen’ by the process for questionable purposes often unrelated to their ability to understand the evidence, that evidence is sometimes extremely complex, and that sometimes jurors decide cases on surprising grounds. While these findings might suggest possible reform in terms of jury selection, judicial directions to juries, and juror education, the main conclusion drawn in this article is that, at least in some cases, courts should consider the use of ‘specialist juries’, in other words citizens with particular training or expertise in relevant areas, to assist in making sure that the ‘quality’ of jury deliberations is as high as possible.

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

Thanks to the authors for providing the abstract.

Daftary-Kapur et al. on Measuring Knowledge of the Insanity Defense: Scale Construction and Validation

Dr. Tarika Daftary-Kapur of the Vera Institute of Justice, and colleagues, have published Measuring Knowledge of the Insanity Defense: Scale Construction and Validation, forthcoming in Behavioral Sciences and the Law. Here is the abstract:

Given the influence of social conformity and prejudice, defendants pleading not guilty by reason of insanity face the significant challenges of securing fair and impartial juries. Attitudes and knowledge of the insanity defense are factors that may influence levels of impartiality. In the light of this, we set out to develop a scale to examine knowledge levels of the insanity defense and their influence on decision-making. Two studies were conducted to construct a scale designed to assess laypersons’ knowledge of the insanity defense. Items measuring knowledge of the insanity defense were based on Perlin’s (1995) insanity defense myths. The first study identified particular items in need of revision and subscales that required the development of additional items in order to improve reliability and construct validity in the second study. The second study used the revised scale, demonstrating improved validity and reliability. The scale also had acceptable predictive validity with reference to insanity defense verdicts.

Ratcliff et al. on The Hidden Consequences of Racial Salience in Videotaped Interrogations and Confessions

Professor Jennifer J. Ratcliff of The State University of New York, College at Brockport, Department of Psychology, and colleagues, have published The Hidden Consequences of Racial Salience in Videotaped Interrogations and Confessions, 16 Psychology, Public Policy, and Law No. 2, pages 200-218 (2010). Here is the abstract:

Evaluations of videotaped criminal confessions can be influenced by the camera perspective taken during recording. Interrogations and confessions recorded with the camera directing observers’ visual attention onto the suspect lead to biased judgments of the suspect. Although a camera perspective that directs visual attention onto the suspect and interrogator equally appears to promote unbiased judgments, investigations to date have relied on videotapes that depict only Caucasian suspects and interrogators. We examined the possibility that even equal-focus videotapes may become problematic when the suspect is a minority (e.g., Chinese American or African American) and the interrogator is Caucasian. That is, to the extent that Caucasian observers are inclined to direct more of their attention onto minorities, an effect documented previously, we expected biased judgments of the suspect to also occur in equal-focus videotapes. Three experiments provided evidence of this racial salience bias. Implications are discussed, including a practical way of avoiding the bias.

Thomas, Are Juries Fair?

Professor Cheryl Thomas of the University College London Faculty of Laws presented a paper entitled Are Juries Fair?, at Jury Research Symposium 2010, held 25-26 March 2010 in Glasgow, Scotland, UK.

Click here for the full text of the paper: Cheryl Thomas, Are Juries Fair? (February 2010) (Ministry of Justice Research Series 1/10).

Here is the abstract:

This research asks: How fair is the jury decision‐making process? It explores a number of aspects of jury fairness for the first time in this country, and asks specifically:

• Do all‐White juries discriminate against BME defendants?
• Do jurors racially stereotype defendants?
• Do juries at certain courts rarely convict?
• Do juries rarely convict on certain offences?
• Do jurors understand legal directions?
• Do jurors know what to do about improper conduct in the jury room?
• Are jurors aware of media coverage of their cases?
• How is the internet affecting jury trials?

The research used a multi‐method approach to examine these issues:

• case simulation with real juries at Crown Courts (involving 797 jurors on 68 juries);
• large‐scale analysis of all actual jury verdicts in 2006–08 (over 68,000 verdicts);
• post‐verdict survey of jurors (668 jurors in 62 cases).

The study found little evidence that juries are not fair. However, it identifies several areas where the criminal justice system should better assist jurors in performing this vital role. The study also demonstrates that section 8 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 does not prevent comprehensive research about how juries reach their verdicts and that research from other jurisdictions should not be relied upon to understand juries in this country.

[NOTE: Updated 22 March 2012 to provide a correct URL for the paper.]