Pickel
- Created by: Steff06
- Created on: 04-05-16 12:45
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- Pickel
- Aims:
- 1. To look at the effect of prior convictions.
- 2. To look at the role of the judge's instructions when they were followed by a legal examination.
- 3. To examine how much the credibility of the witness affects the jurors' ability to ignore inadmissible evidence.
- Methodology:
- Experiment using a mock trial of a fictional theft with a mock jury. Critical evidence introduced by accident by witness. Item objected to by attorney and either allowed or overuled by judge.
- In former case, when jurors were instructed to ignore inadmissible evidence, this ruling by the judge was sometimes supported by a legal explanation. That inadmissible evidence may be suggestive of bad character in defendant and bias jury. Sometimes, no legal explanation was provided.
- Participants:
- 236 Bali State University psychology students participated as part of a course requirement. Randomly assigned to one of the conditions in an independent measures design.
- Procedure:
- Participants listened to an audiotape of the trial and then completed a questionnaire asking them to make several decisions about the case.
- 1 was the verdict, 1 was their estimate of the probable guilt of the defendant, 1 was a rating on a 10 point scale of the extent to which knowledge of the prior conviction caused them to believe the defendant was guilty.
- They gave a rating on the credibility of each witness. There was a control group who id not get the critical evidence.
- Results:
- Mock jurors who heard the critical evidence ruled inadmissible and who received no explanation were able to follow instructions and ignore the evidence.
- Those who heard the evidence ruled inadmissible and who were given the explanation were less likely to find the defendant guilty and were clearly not able to disregard it.
- No evidence was found to support the hypothesis that the credibility of the witness would affect the jurors' ability to disregard inadmissible evidence. No significant effect on the use of of prior conviction evidence as measured by the 10-point scale.
- Conclusions:
- Calling attention to inadmissible evidence makes it more important to the jury and they pay more attention to it.
- They apply sense of fair play to decide whether or not to make use of it (backfire effect).
- Aims:
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