Summary to be provided by Amanda
Negative and Positive Pretrial Publicity Affect Juror Memory and Decision Making
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Summary to be provided by Amanda
TrackBack URL: http://www.psychologicalscience.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.cgi/196
Many people would presume that negative and positive publicity before a trial would cause bias decisions, but there is not a lot of information on the subject. This experiment studies negative, neutral, or positive pretrial information and if there are any significant results that would cause problems in a trial.
The experiment has two different phases. The first phase consists of participants who are given news articles to read and then asked to come back five days later for the second part. Phase two required participants to watch a trial. After watching the trial, the participants were divided into two groups; a group to immediately complete the experiment and the other group asked to come back two days later. The experimenters used a source memory test and asked the participants to rate their confidence in their answers. Guilt measures, ratings of credibility, and also a debriefing questionnaire were also used. Participants were told that they should not convict a criminal if there is any doubt they are innocent and also to use only the information used during the trial to convict the criminal.
The results were consistent with their hypothesis. Jurors exposed to negative pretrial publicity were more likely to provide higher guilt ratings and to vote guilty compared to the jurors who were given the positive pretrial publicity. In fact, the discussion of the article states that jurors given the negative PTP were two times more likely to convict the witness when compared to the jurors given the positive PTP. The results of this experiment also suggested that delay time had a dramatic effect on the juror’s ability to differ between the two sources of information. Jurors with the delayed testing had three times more errors then jurors who were tested immediately.
After reading the discussion of this article, I think that this topic should be addressed to police officials and other people of the law. Some of the important factors to take into account when looking at pretrial information is length of deliberations, type of case, amount of pretrial publicity, and type of publicity. Overall, I think this is an excellent article that provides results on the effects of pretrial publicity and also provides other variables that need to be tested in the future. KC
Pre-trial publicity about the defendent (media coverage before a trial) can have an affect on a juror’s decision, by leading to a biased decision. The right of free speech makes it challenging for courts to prohibit media coverage, and this many times creates a biasing effect. It does seem unfair if the extensive media coverage leads to biases because the individual is not guilty yet and should receive a fair trial. The article talked about how source memory errors can cause a judge to think the pre-trial publicity is part of the trial therefore, using it in the making of the verdict. I never thought to think how all of the media attention actually affected the individual being tried. I never stopped to think of the biased image created in everyone’s mind, including judges, when the medial covers trials. I guess it makes since that any misinformation is shown before the trial could influence how one may think of that particular case. These source memory errors are a major issue; it is important to understand that the brain is not perfect and can fail to correctly verify exactly where a memory game from as well as its content. I found it interesting to find out that jurors who had been exposed to negative pre-trial publicity (PTP) were more likely to give out the guilty verdict vs. jurors who had not been exposed to the negative pre-trial publicity. Also, the jurors exposed to the negative PTP also suspected the defendant to be less creditable. After reading this article, I find the topic fascinating and will for ever more question pre-trial information when it’s on television. The study found that jurors who were exposed to negative pre-trial publicity had just about twice the conviction rates compared to the judges who had not been exposed. It was also found that positive pre-trial information has a biasing effect on the judge’s decision.
The pretrial publicity articles were interesting. The results of these articles have implications for defense attorneys who attempt to use change of venue motions to obtain a fair trial for their clients. Negative pretrial publicity has the potential to negatively affect jurors and bias their judgments. However, the topic of juror knowledge can also extend beyond pretrial publicity to other areas related to eyewitness identification.
The topic of juror knowledge happens to be one of my favorites as related to eyewitness identification. Many studies have focused on what jurors know about eyewitness identification, which turns out to be not much. One study that I have read focuses on what jurors know relative to experts, and there was not much agreement between the two groups. I believe that jurors only agreed with experts on about 4 out of the 30 items that were examined in this study. These findings provide strength for the argument that we need experts to testify about eyewitness identification issues to provide information to jurors. Without expert testimony, jurors tend to rely heavily on witness confidence in making identifications, which we have seen is a poor predictor of accuracy. However, many judges claim that the factors relating to eyewitness identification are “common sense,” and jurors do not need to hear an expert testify about these issues. Other research has shown that judges hold the same beliefs of jurors, which is probably why they argue that this knowledge is “common sense.”
Overall, this topic is very important to the criminal justice system. We must assess the effects of many variables, including pretrial publicity, on juror judgments. We also need to assess juror knowledge of factors outside of eyewitness identification and also examine juror misconceptions to understand what jurors know and believe. There are many misconceptions held by jurors that affect their judgments. This research is important for defendants because it is important that jurors be able to make an informed decision when they make a judgment that affects a defendant’s life.
HC
Pretrial publicity, whether or positive or negative, seems like it would have some bearing on one’s perception of a trial. Personal experiences should be enough to convince most people that this is true, whether it’s a result of conscious or unconscious bias. It’s likely that everyone has been in a situation where information they received in advance had an effect on their interpretation of an event, whether it was hearing an instructor was hard, and as a result having a difficult time in the class, or whatever the situation happened to be. Ruva & McEvoy’s study “Negative and Positive Pretrial Publictity Affect Juror Memory and Decision Making” focuses the effect of pretrial publicity (positive or negative) and the extent to which source confusion (whether or not the individual could identify whether or not the evidence was presented in court or through media or some other outlet) occurs. They study implies that both positive and negative pretrial publicity affect verdicts, and the subjects’ perception of the defendants credibility and the perception of the attorneys’ competence. The results also show evidence of source confusion, as individuals often recalled information offered in pretrial publicity as though it were presented during the trial. This outcome points to source confusion being a significant problem, as the jurors couldn’t differentiate between what was actually evidence presented in trial, and information that could have been unsubstantiated (or entirely false) and mentioned before the trial. Introducing a delay caused an increase in source memory errors, but didn’t appear to have an effect on verdicts. This is significant because the delay was only two days; long, drawn out trials with more pretrial publicity and evidence presented in court could have even more pronounced effects on the source confusion, and as a result, jurors could be basing decisions on information not accepted by the court. The results of this study imply that pretrial publicity could have significant consequences when it comes time for the verdict to be decided, even though in this case the guilt ratings were not affected.
SB