Persuading a jury
- Created by: romy kale
- Created on: 08-10-13 16:00
1.1 the effect of order of the testimony
- The way that information is recieved affects how it is processed and recalled
- The primacy-recency effect suggests that what we hear first and last is better remembered than what we hear in the middle
- suggests the prosecution will have an advantage over the defence as they always present their case first (primacy)
- but this may be wiped out as the defence always closes last (recency)
- Also, how counsel decides to structure their cases is important
- 'story'- chronological order
- 'witness'- best witnesses go first and last
1.2 Persuasion
- Jurors are open to persuasion
- especially when expert witnesses are used
- Petty et al (1986) put forward the Liklihood model
- suggests peripheral cues may have a greater effect in terms of persuaion especially when the information needed to be processed is complex
- A peripheral cue could be characteristics such as gender of the expert which could trigger stereotypes that influences jury decisions
1.3 Effect of evidence being ruled inadmissable
- Not all evidence can be used in court against the accused
- two reasons why evidence may not be allowed:
-Since 2004 in uk hearsay and previous convictions can be admissable if judge allows
-Evidence may not be allowed because of way it is obtained e.g. phone tapping or improperly conducted interviews
- Judge may give permission for evidence to be used
- usually because judge has been persuaded by one of lawyers that the evidence is valuble
- if counsel tries to slip inadmissable evidence to court then judge will direct jury to disregard the evidence
- jury will pay more attention to it- Reactance theory
- feel their free will is jepordised so will take it into consideration more
Pennington and Hastie
- Effect of memory structure on judgement
- Test hypothesis that juries more persuaded by 'story order' than 'witness order'
method:
- Lab experiment 130 univeristy students, allocated to 4 conditions
- mock murder trial evidence presented by tape recorder (of real case)
- written questions about evidnece and told to reach a vedict of guilty/not guilty
- rate confidence on 5 point scale
- story order condition= evidence arranged in chronological order
- witness order= evidence arranged in order closest to real trial
Results
- story order by prosecution= guilty verdict reached 78% of time
- Story order by defence= guilty 31% of time
- ppts were also more confident of verdict when they had heard evidence in story order
Pennington and Hastie
Conclusion
- Lawyers use story order- jury more convinced of their side as they have a full version of events and therefore dont need to use schemas to fill in gaps which removes doubt
Evaluation
- Restricted sample (130 students
- Biased
- Useful- controls (tape recorder)
- Low validity and low Ecological Validity (mock trial)
- Mundane realism- order closest to real trial, returning a verdict on a real case
- High quantitative data (no. of guilty not guilty and 5 point scale)
- Useful- soliciters and lawyers know how best to present evidence
Mckimmie et al
gender sterotyping and expert witness
investigated the persuasive influence of gender of an expert witness on jury decision making
Method
- lab experiment- 62 psychology students took part in mock trial
- randomly assigned to 1 of 4 conditions based on gender of expert witness
- cosmetics industry- female orientation auomotive industry- male orientation
- ppts given name and photo of expert witness and read a transcript of a price fixing trial
- suggest amount of damages rewarded and rate the credibility of the expert witness used
- make individual judgement then enter group deliberations and come to a joint agreement
results
- larger damages awarded whne experts gender matched the orientation of job
- when cosmetics industry case had a female witness they awarded $90 000 more than when the witness was male
Mckimmie et al
Evaluation
low bias- randomly assigned to 1 of 4 conditions
low in reliability- Independant measures design used- only took part in one condition
demand characteristics- 62 psychology students may guess the aim
low validity- mock trial
low ecological validity- mock trial not in a real court
Pickel et al
Investigating effect of instructions to diregard inadmissable evidence
Evaluation
Population Validity- 236 students used and students are eligable for jury service
Demand characteristics- psychology students guess aim
Low Ecological validity- tape recording of a fictional theft
Restricted sample- 236 psychology students- not generalisable
low reliability- independent measures design- students only took part in one condition
useful- judge needs to be aware of impact of explanations of inadmissable evidence also, soliciters know to bring it in to a trial as it can affect jury decisions
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