Psychology of the Courtroom

1. Psychology of the Courtroom Trials Juries Children as Witnesses

3. Issues in Jury Decision making Is it possible to get a set of neutral, impartial and objective Jurors, willing to discuss their views and feelings only with their fellow jurors? The stress and the pressures involved in considering information and having to reach a verdict over a long time period in a high profile case. Issues of conformity and group dynamics.

4. Trial influences and Procedures �While the Jury can contribute nothing of value so far as the law is concerned, it has an infinite capacity for mischief, for 12 men can easily misunderstand more law in one minute than a Judge can explain in one hour� � Judge Jerome Frank (USA 1948).

5. Hastie 1983 Evidence presented for a considerable period of time but Jurors do not have a legal context in which to place it this is provided only by the Judge�s final summing up and the odd admonishment by the judge of defence and prosecution counsels by the Judge during the trial. Hastie 83 � Has shown that these admonishments tend to be counter productive Perception of Evidence

6. Kassin Kassin has shown that even when a Judge rules that a disputed confession was coerced and not voluntary and instructs the Jury to discount it, evidence from mock juror experiments suggests that jurors will often be persuaded by it anyway. Confession evidence is so inherently prejudicial that people do not discount the information even when it is logically and legally appropriate to do so.

7. Juror attributions Psychologists have also been interested in how Jurors make sense of evidence. According to Bennett and Feldman (1988) evidence is fitted together by Jurors within a story framework which dictates a chronology. In reality the story must be tied to reality by means of the evidence . When interpreting the evidence they must use common sense rules (heuristics) to link the evidence and story together.

8. Perception of Witnesses � Accuracy and Confidence Research evidence tends to indicate that how witnesses are perceived by the Jury can influence their belief about the witnesses accuracy and honesty. Experimental participants regard as persuasive those communicators who are extroverted, involved, positive and moderately relaxed. They tend to use a great deal of eye contact, to speak in clear steady tones and appear confident ( Loftus 1982 ).

9. (Ainsworth 1998) A commonsense view would be that witnesses who were very confident about their testimony would be more likely to be accurate than would those who appear unsure. Yet surprisingly, psychological research suggests that there is little correlation between eye witness confidence and the accuracy of accounts.

10. Confidence In other words, the most confident eye witness will not necessarily be any more accurate than the one who appears faltering and unsure. As Loftus (79) notes one should not take high confidence as any guarantee of anything.

11. Work of Prosecution and Defence Lawyers Fredrick 1990 has detailed some of the more important features of opening and closing statements that help to persuade juries of their position.

12. Framework of a trial Opening Statement Primacy/recency effect Rhetorical questions Forewarning Supportive and counter arguments Closing Argument � Motivation of Jurors Seeing it from the client�s perspective Credibility of key witnesses Attention level of Jurors Confidence and integrity

13. f) Characteristics of the defendant Stereotyping � Cue �specials music The beautiful are good the ugly are criminals � Witches!! Dion, Berschied & Hatfield 1972 � What is beautiful is good, intelligent, truthful, confident, happy, assertive and serious & therefore not likely to commit crime.

14. Saladin 1988 � Surely an excellent coursework! Showed participants 8 photos of men and asked them how capable they considered them to be of committing 2 crimes: Murder & Armed Robbery Attractive deemed less likely of committing either Also viewed more sympathetically by jurors & judges and treated more leniently This effect is strongest with serious but non fatal crimes such as burglary & when females are being judged � back to the witches again!

15. Exceptions to this rule? - Quigley 1995 � Again think coursework here! Downs & Lyons 1991 � analysed the fines & bail payments of 1500 defendants accused of minor crimes & asked police officers to rate them on attractiveness. The results showed that when seriousness of the crime was controlled for attractiveness was negatively correlated with the amount of bail or fine imposed.

16. Stewart 1980 sent observers into courtrooms to rate defendants on attractiveness & found a similar negative correlation. He later extended his research into rating cleanliness, neatness & quality of dress as well. Over a 2 year period 60 defendants were observed & it was found that those who were perceived as attractive, neat and well dressed were treated with greater leniency. Although attractiveness affected sentencing it did not affect whether the defendant was convicted or acquitted. The Scouser in the dock phenomenon! Another CWK!

17. Other Factors Berry & McArthur 1985 � The Solskjaer effect Bull & McAlpine 1998 � reviewing this area of research suggest studies that don�t find a link go unreported therefore we get a biased image of the influence of attractiveness � The media bad news effect.

18. Conclusion However, people do tend to make assumptions and assertions that there is a link between looks and crime � Don�t they??

19. Children as witnesses A current area concern is the use of children's witnesses. It has been suggested that children may succumb to misleading suggestions provided by an authority figure. Leichtman and Ceci (1995) conducted a study of three to six -year-olds.