Persuading a Jury

Some background questions

Where are minor cases held?

• Magistrates Court

The British Justice System was first enshrined in law by what?

• The Magna Carta

What type of system in this country takes place in court?

• Adversial; lawyers argue against each other and the judge is neutral

Who supervises the crown court?

• The judge

What are the lawyers called who present the evidence?

• Barristers

Where do the jurors sit?

• Jury box

Who aren’t eligible to be jurors?

• Prisoners, former prisoners and those with mental illness

What type of decision should the jury come to?

• Majority

Is it legal to question jurors’ decision?

• Illegal

Order of Testimony

Look at the following words for 30 seconds;

• Chair
• Cushion                                      
• Table
• Perfume
• Guitar                                                                        
• Shoe
• Folder   
• Case
• Sandal                                   
• Hat
• Hair
• Clock                                                   
• Toy
• Toilet
• Robot
• Book                                
• Can
• Jar                                                                                             

Now turn away from the screen and see if you can recall them by writing them down. How did you do? How many did you get?

Now have a look at the order that you recalled the words. According to Murdock (1962) we tend to recall the words at the start of the list better than words at the end or in the middle. This is the serial position effect.

Q - How does the serial position effect apply to court cases?

• A - Juries may listen to the prosecutions opening speech but may lose attention by the time the defence speaks. 

Glanzer and Cunitz (1966) also found the primacy and recency effect and discovered that subjects forget the information in the middle. So this would suggest that jurors will recall the prosecutions statement and the judge’s summing up but not necessarily the defence’s speech.

This is why Pennington and Hastie (1988) investigated the way that information is presented in court and whether it is best to present all the information in chronological order (story order) or to benefit the promacy and recency effect, show the witnesses first and last. 

Consider when you are giving lots of facts and information. Do you find yourself trying to organise that information into some kind of order? This is what Pennington and Hastie (1988) found. Jurors organise the information they are given using their own personal experiences and knowledge.  The case will therefore be more persuasive if the jurors hear the evidence in story order (the order that the events actually occurred).

Q - What major implication does this research have for court cases?

• A - The way trials are run can weaken the case. For example frequently the coroner begins by talking about the cause of death which in a story would be at the end. Plus witnesses’ evidence does not form a story because barristers are trying to take advantage of the primacy and recency effect and may put their best witnesses first and last.

Persuasion

Witness identifying conditions can be leading questions, the weapons effect and if the testimony is delayed which would affect memory of the crime. Therefore expert witnesses can help the jury to understand these conditions and to recognise when a witnesses is reliable.

Cutler and Penrod (1989) used a mock jury of psychology students to research whether doubt is put into the minds of jurors when an expert witness advises them on the reliability of eyewitnesses which may in turn affect their decision making and they found that if the jurors listened to expert testimony, then this improved their knowledge and helped them pay attention to the conditions that could affect the reliability of eyewitness testimony.

Effect of evidence being ruled inadmissible

The three examples of inadmissible evidence and why they are inadmissible are shown below.

• Hearsay; such as gossip, speculation and  rumours
• Previous convictions; Only on trial for current crime
• Improper evidence;  gathering evidence that is illegal such as phone tapping, entering a house without a warrant

All of the above could prejudice the jury against the defendant.

If evidence does get heard like the above, the judge declares the evidence to be inadmissible and instructs the jury to ignore it. But do they?

Pickel (1995) researched the effect of instructions to disregard inadmissible evidence using a mock jury of students. In one condition when evidence that was introduced was inadmissible and the jury were told to ignore it, there was a legal explanation of why the evidence was inadmissible but in another condition there wasn’t an explanation.

Participants had to come to a verdict and work out if the defendant was guilty as well as the credibility of the witness and the effect of knowledge of prior convictions. The results were that the mock jurors who heard the evidence ruled inadmissible and didn’t receive a legal explanation were able to ignore it and found the defendant guilty.

Those who were given a legal explanation were less likely to find the defendant guilty and had not been able to ignore it. There was no significant effect found of the knowledge of prior convictions or credibility of the witness. Therefore, paying heed to inadmissible evidence makes the jury pay more attention to it. This makes them feel as if the defendant is being picked on so jurors go against the inadmissible evidence. This is called reactance theory as the jurors are reacting against what the judge is trying to tell them to think.