Reaching a Verdict

Pennington and Hastie - Order of testimony 

Pickel et al - Inadmissable evidence

Cutler - Expert Witness 

• Order of testimony 
• 130 students
• Placed on one of four conditions
  1- prosecution , guilty, story order
  2- prosecution, guilty, witness order
  3- defence, not guilty , story order
  4- defence., not guilty, witness order
• Heard a tape recording, responded to a questionnaire, reached a verdict and rated confidence
• When the evidence was presented in story order, the jurors had greatest confidence

• Expert witness
• 538 students
• mock trial, watched a video in which an expert gave evidence on a robbery, a questionnaire was completed after
• They rated the witness and rated their confidence
• when an expert gives knowledge, jurors pay more attention and improve their knowledge 

• The effect of inadmissable evidence on jurors verdict
• 236 students
• Assigned to one of three conditions
  1) ignore evidence with no reason
  2) ignore evidence and given a legal reason
  3) accept evidence
• Watched a video of a trial in which evidence was introduced, being either allowed or ignored with a legal reason given or not. A questionnaire then to be filed out.
• When the evidence was not allowed with a legal reason given the  jurors found it harder to ignore , it was easier to ignore when a reason was not given 

Rotter et al - Protective Shields

Castellow - Attractiveness

Penrod and Cutler - Witnesses Confidence 

• The effect of protective shields on guilty verdicts
• 300 students
• placed in one of three conditions
  1- full view
  2- behind a screen
  3- video link
• A mock trial in which the child witness gave evidence, set out in the conditions, after the participants gave a verdict and rated the creditability of the child
• there was no significant difference between the three condition son the amount of guilty verdicts given
• this shows that protective shields do not have an effect 

• attractiveness of the victim/defendant and the guilty verdict
• 71 male and 74 female students
• Watched a videos of a trails, and then answered a questionnaire, rating both victim and defendant on 11 bipolar scales.
• If the victim was attractive then 77% more guilty verdicts
  if the defendant was attractive then 56% guilty verdicts
• Can be applied to the courtroom as appearance is a powerful influence 

• The influence of witness confidence on a juror
• mock trial,videotape of robbery
  eye witness played a key role being either 100% or 80% confident
• ppts given a questionnaire on 9 different variables and give a verdict
• confidence was the only statistical significant variable however is a poor predictor of accuracy 

Hastie - stages of decision making

soloman Asch - Majority Influence

Moscovici - Minority Influence 

• By applying findings from research on group dymanics in social situations, Hastie developed three stages that a jury will go through when reaching a verdict
• orientation period
• confrontation period 
• reconciliation period
• However the jury is a special situation and using group dynamics from a 'normal' situation may not be accurate 
• The jury cannot be observed, so the theories can never be tested 

• The effect of a majoriy inlfuence over an individual
• 123 students
• They were the only participant with a group of stooges, stooges are thoe who are in on the experiment.
• The group and participant were sat at a table and showed pictures of different length lines , being asked either which is the shortest or longest. The stooges all gave pre-decided answers, in which some were clearly wrong.
• If the majority gave wrong answers then the participant was 80% more likely to conform
• Asch concludes that  people conform to belong in a group