Decision making of juries

A jury s a randomly selected members of the public aged betwen 18-70. They are called to assess a criminal case and decide whether that person is gulity or innocent based on evidence provided in court.

However sometimes it's not only the evidence which is given which affects the view of whether or not someone is gulity or innocent.

Majority Influence: Issues such as conformity may affect a jury decison. If one person in a jury disagrees with the majority decision, but doesn't speak out their view, this would result in a inaccurate verdict.

Mackie- Majority influence is overwhelming because arguments can be more numerous and opinions tend to be discussed for longer than views held by one person.

Kalven- 215 Juries with a majority view at the beginning of the delibrations only 6 changed to the minority decisions at the end of the dicussions, showing that it's difficult to change to majority view of a jury.

Offender Charateristics:

Attractiveness can effect a person's sentencing.

Saladin showed participants photos of a men and asked them to judge whether or not he could be seen as capeable of committing theft or murder. The attractive man in the photo was considered less likely to commit a serious crime then…