Influences on the Court Process (Edexcel A-Level Psychology): Revision Notes
Influences on the Court Process
Introduction to the court process
The primary objective of policing is to handle as many crimes as possible in ways that deter future offending. For many criminal cases, this requires a criminal trial where a decision is made about whether the accused person is guilty of the crime they are charged with.
In England and Wales, many criminal cases are processed through the Crown Court, which has the authority to impose long prison sentences when necessary, though it can also deliver more lenient sentences for less serious offences. Less serious cases may be handled in the Magistrates Court, where magistrates have limited sentencing powers, including short prison sentences. For all Crown Court cases, a jury of twelve adults is selected to assist the judge in reaching a verdict.
The jury system is a fundamental component of the English and Welsh criminal justice system. Juries are composed of ordinary citizens who have no legal training but are expected to make informed decisions about guilt or innocence based on the evidence presented during trial.
Jury decisions can be influenced by various factors at different stages of the trial process, including characteristics of the defendant, pre-trial publicity, and factors that affect behaviour during deliberations in the jury room.
Factors influencing jury decision making
Pre-trial influences
Publicity and media exposure
Before the trial begins, information surrounding the offence, the defendant, or other case details can shape the schemas that jury members develop about those involved. Media communications, whether through traditional news outlets or social media platforms, can create perceptions of the defendant and other parties even before official information is presented in court.
Once perceptions about a defendant form in the minds of jury members, they become extremely difficult to change. This is because schemas act as mental frameworks that filter new information, often leading people to interpret evidence in ways that confirm their existing beliefs.
Competence and instructions
Jurors are expected to process technical information that may fall outside their personal knowledge base and make informed decisions based on this technical evidence.
Research Study: Forster Lee et al. (1993)
Forster Lee et al. demonstrated the importance of timing when providing jury instructions. Their study found that providing instructions to jury members before the presentation of technical information, rather than afterwards, improved their ability to focus on relevant information.
Key Finding: The pre-trial instructions helped jurors filter out irrelevancies and enhanced their capacity as non-technical jury members to understand the evidence presented.
However, jurors face challenges when evaluating scientific evidence, even after cross-examination by other experts, due to difficulties understanding the meaning of evidence. Severance and Loftus (1982) showed that explaining key legal terms to juries, such as 'reasonable doubt', improved understanding of legal concepts, though not all jury members demonstrated full understanding even after explanations. Explanations assist understanding for familiar terms but do little to improve comprehension of more unfamiliar legal terminology.
Reifman et al. (1992) found that real jurors' comprehension of trial instructions is limited, and this finding also applies to mock jurors participating in jury research. This highlights a persistent challenge in the jury system: ensuring that ordinary citizens can understand complex legal and technical concepts.
During trial influences
Defendant characteristics
Defendant characteristics such as race, gender, appearance and other attributes can bias jury decisions based on stereotypes jury members may hold towards individuals with certain characteristics. This is examined in detail in the following section.
Expert witness testimony
Expert witness testimony is often employed to provide scientific credibility to evidence and help clarify complex issues. Experts warn juries about the reliability of certain witness evidence, which can reduce trust in such evidence, though it does not necessarily help juries discriminate between reliable and unreliable evidence.
Research has shown that even when expert witnesses warn jurors about problems with eyewitness testimony, jurors tend to disregard these warnings and still believe eyewitness accounts. This demonstrates the powerful influence of eyewitness testimony on jury decision making, even when its reliability is questioned.
Research Study: Cutler et al. (1989)
Cutler et al. demonstrated that jurors were more likely to deliver guilty verdicts when expert witnesses used straightforward, easy-to-understand language.
Implication: This suggests that language style can influence jury opinions, raising concerns about whether the presentation of expert testimony matters more than its actual content.
Critical Concern About Expert Testimony
The presentation style of expert testimony, rather than just its content, may sway jury decisions. This means that a less qualified expert who communicates clearly might be more persuasive than a highly qualified expert who uses technical jargon.
Story models
When faced with complex information, juries tend to extract key information or facts and construct a coherent narrative to make sense of the information presented to them.
Research Study: Pennington and Hastie (1990)
Pennington and Hastie investigated how the order of information presentation affects jury verdicts.
Findings:
- When information was presented in an easy-to-understand order: 78% of participants gave guilty verdicts
- When information was presented in a less logical order: only 31% gave guilty verdicts
Conclusion: Legal representatives should carefully consider how they structure their legal arguments, as the narrative structure can be used as a means of influencing trial outcomes.
Additional consideration should be given to witness characteristics within trials. Social psychology research has identified that authoritarian personalities are more likely to be followed by others, and a confident, authoritarian witness may influence jury decisions. Race, accent and attractiveness of witnesses may also influence juries, based on their schemas and stereotypes.
Post-trial influences
Conformity
Conformity occurs when an individual abandons their personal views under group pressure. Within a jury situation, two types of conformity may occur: normative and informational.
Types of Conformity in Jury Deliberations
Normative conformity describes situations where jury members conform to avoid rejection by the group or to gain rewards from them, though they may not genuinely agree with the decision.
Informational conformity occurs when individuals conform to group norms because they do not know what to do and look to the group for guidance. This may happen when jurors do not understand the legal technicalities of the case.
With normative conformity, jury members would reject the group or seek rewards from them, but may not genuinely agree with the decision.
Research Study: Asch (1951)
Asch's conformity research identified key factors that influence conformity in group settings:
Most influential group size: 7:1 ratio (seven people holding one view against one person)
Additional factors that increased conformity:
- Difficult tasks
- Higher status of some group members
These findings have direct implications for jury decision making, where minority viewpoints may be suppressed by group pressure.
Informed decision and the Vicky Pryce trial
An informed decision is one that uses all available facts and information. Once information has been gathered, the person can evaluate it to make their decision.
Real-World Case: The Vicky Pryce Trial (February 2013)
Background: Vicky Pryce was accused of falsely admitting she was driving the car when her husband at the time, Chris Huhne (a Member of Parliament), was caught speeding.
The Problem: The jury had listened to all the information and were at the deliberation stage when they asked some basic questions that raised concerns with the judge about their understanding of their role and of the information given to them in court.
Outcome: The judge determined he had no choice but to dismiss the first jury, select a new one and hold a retrial, hoping that the new jury would understand and be able to make an informed decision.
Significance: This unusual case highlights that juries are expected to have a sufficient level of understanding of the English language, formal discussions and an ability to evaluate information given to them. Their abilities in this area may have a notable effect on the decisions they make at trial.
Minority influence
It does not always require a large number of individuals to influence the decision of one juror. Moscovici (1976) suggests that one or a small minority of like-minded individuals may influence the majority if they are:
- Consistent in their arguments
- Committed in their opinions and arguments
- Appear to be acting on principle rather than out of self-gain
- Incur some cost for their position
- Not being overly rigid and unreasonable in their opinions and arguments
Social loafing
Not every individual who serves on a jury is motivated to attend. Many people serve only because they have been summoned to participate. Such individuals may be inclined to deliberate less thoroughly.
Social loafing refers to a reduction in individual effort on a collective task, where output is pooled with those of other group members, compared to when working alone.
The Social Loafing Problem in Juries
Knowing that the final jury decision is a collective one, an individual jury member may be inclined to review the information less carefully than they would if it was their decision alone, thereby letting other jury members think for them and influence their decisions.
This phenomenon poses a serious threat to the integrity of jury decision making, as it means some jurors may not be fully engaged in evaluating the evidence.
Foreperson influence
All juries have a foreperson, who is the individual responsible for presenting the jury's decision back to the judge. The foreperson is often perceived as a leader, and the selection of the foreperson often reflects this perception. Leaders are more likely to influence others as they are considered best placed to make decisions. If this individual has an authoritarian personality (see Topic 1: Social psychology), this may further influence other jury members.
Evidence for the influence of the foreperson is more limited than other post-trial factors. However, the potential for leadership influence remains a consideration in understanding jury dynamics.
These factors suggest that the trial process is vulnerable at many stages, as jury members are susceptible to influence throughout the process, even before being selected as jury members, and after all evidence has been presented.
Characteristics of the defendant
The stereotypes we hold can influence how we perceive and categorise individuals, and can affect our views towards these people. Our stereotypes can be influenced by how people sound, what they look like, or how they behave. This can alter how we would view individuals if they were defendants in a trial situation.
Race
Most research examining race has focused on the relationship between white jurors and black or white defendants. One common finding has been that white jurors in mock trials demonstrate negative bias towards black defendants during sentence decisions, giving them harsher sentences when compared to white defendants. A similar racial bias has been shown during verdict decisions, with more black defendants being found guilty than white defendants.
Research Study: Bradbury and Williams (2013)
This study examined how jury composition affects conviction rates for black defendants.
Key Findings:
- Black defendants are less likely to be convicted by juries composed of a higher proportion of black jurors
- Black defendants are more likely to be convicted by juries composed of a higher proportion of white or Hispanic jurors
Research Study: Skolnick and Shaw (1997)
Skolnick and Shaw investigated the relationship between juror race and defendant race in verdict decisions.
Findings:
- Jury members of the same ethnic race as the defendant were less likely to find the defendant guilty
- White jurors were more likely to find a black defendant guilty than a white defendant
- The same effect was not found if the jury was black and the defendant white
Surprising Conclusion: A black defendant always received fewer guilty verdicts, irrespective of the race of the jury. This was speculated to be due to white jury members being fearful of being accused as racist.
Complexity of Racial Bias in Jury Decisions
David Abwender and Kenyatta Hough's 2001 mock jury research involving black, white and Hispanic defendants revealed that racial bias is more complicated than initially assumed:
- Black participants showed leniency towards defendants of their own race
- Hispanic participants showed the opposite effect
- White participants did not show any ethnic bias
This suggests that any racial bias in jury decision making may not be consistent among racial groups, making it difficult to predict or address.
Attractiveness
Defendants are instructed when attending court to present themselves in smart and tidy fashion, even if this is not their typical dress style. This helps reduce any negative stereotypes the jury may hold against defendants based on a more casual appearance and can influence whether the jury finds the defendant guilty.
Evidence for this was found in Abwender and Hough's study. Female jurors were found to be harsher towards unattractive defendants than towards attractive ones, but male jurors showed the opposite effect.
Villains in films are usually portrayed as unattractive and are often presented as untrustworthy. The 'good guys', however, tend to be attractive and appear more trustworthy and honest. This creates a stereotype that can be found in research, including that by Dion et al. (1975).
Research Study: Dion et al. (1975)
This study investigated how attractiveness influences sentencing recommendations.
Method:
- 120 participants were asked to make sentence recommendations for a defendant named Barbara Helms
- Crime type: either burglary or fraud
- Attractiveness manipulation: attractive photo, unattractive photo, or no photo (control)
Six Experimental Conditions:
- Attractive photo of Barbara accused of burglary
- Unattractive photo of Barbara accused of burglary
- No photograph with the burglary case (control group)
- Attractive photo of Barbara accused of fraud
- Unattractive photo of Barbara accused of fraud
- No photograph with the fraud case (control group)
Procedure:
- All participants rated Barbara's attractiveness to ensure agreement on which photographs showed her as unattractive and attractive
- Participants gave a prison sentence between 1 and 15 years for the crime
Key Findings:
- Barbara received longer prison terms for fraud when shown in the attractive photo condition
- Barbara received less time in prison for burglary when shown in the attractive photo condition
- Similar sentence lengths were given for both crimes in the 'unattractive' and 'no photograph' conditions
Interpretation: The attractiveness of the photograph influenced participants' decisions. This could be due to an assumption that attractive people use their looks to deceive people out of money, whereas attractive people are not associated with burglary.
Limitations of the Dion et al. Study
This study, whilst informative, would not be applicable to a real trial, as juries only make decisions on guilt and do not decide the length of sentences for defendants who have been found guilty. Only judges have the legal power to make that decision to ensure impartiality.
However, the study does provide valuable information about the perceptions people hold towards those of different levels of attractiveness.
The negative effect of unattractiveness on decisions of guilt has been evidenced in other mock trial studies. Saladin et al. (1988) showed participants photos of eight men and asked them to judge how capable they thought the men would be of committing armed robbery and murder. Findings were that unattractive men were considered more likely to have committed either crime than attractive men. This could be called an 'attractiveness effect'.
The attractiveness effect is most evident with serious but non-fatal crimes such as burglary, and when females are being judged (Quigley et al. 1995).
The attractiveness effect is, however, not seen if people are considered to be using their attractiveness for material gain, such as in fraud cases. It would therefore appear that juries make assumptions about whether defendants have used their appearance to benefit them in crime, and if it is considered that they have, they are more likely to find them guilty.
Accent
John Dixon and Berenice Mahoney are British psychologists who have conducted extensive research examining whether the accent of defendants can influence jury decision making. They, with other colleagues, have typically focused on the Birmingham accent, likely due to the geographical area where they work. They identified that there was a probable level of prejudice occurring towards those with a strong Birmingham accent, compared to a non-Birmingham accent.
Research Study: Dixon and Mahoney (1997, 2002, 2004)
Method:
- Participants were given a transcript and a tape recording to listen to with different accents
- Used a mock-trial research method
Key Findings (1997):
- Those with a strong 'Brummie' accent were considered to be more guilty
- A black defendant with a Birmingham accent was seen as more guilty than a white defendant with the same strong accent
- All participants were white, non-Birmingham students
Replication: This study was repeated in 2002 and 2004, with the same outcome each time.
Reliability: The consistent findings across multiple replications support a high level of reliability for these results.
Pre-trial publicity
Nowadays, the internet, television and social media make it easy for us to acquire information or to communicate with other people, and not just people known to us. A criminal case is often documented in the media for a notable time before it goes to trial. Members of the general public, including potential jury members, may therefore form an opinion of the case and any identified suspects long before the trial.
Schemas (covered in Cognitive psychology, Topic 2) help us organise and interpret information and the world around us. This can influence juries who are exposed to pre-trial information, as they try to make sense of the information using their own schema. During the trial, the jury member's schema can alter their perception of the evidence they are presented with in court.
Pre-trial publicity can involve two types of information: factual or emotional publicity. Factual publicity is likely to include incriminating information about the defendant or the case, such as what happened during the crime. Emotional publicity may not contain incriminating information but is likely to present information that could arouse negative emotions. This could be information about the defendant or victim's past, for example.
Emotional vs Factual Publicity
Emotional publicity is considered to have a longer lasting influence on jury members than factual information, which can be redressed within the trial as more information about what happened is presented to the jury.
This is particularly concerning because emotional biases are harder to overcome through factual evidence presented during trial.
Evaluation of pre-trial publicity research
There is extensive psychological research into the effects of pre-trial publicity on jury decision making. Many of these studies have used mock juries deliberately exposed to specific media sources and information. They may not reflect the effects of real pre-trial publicity on real jurors. Real jurors cannot be deliberately exposed to pre-trial publicity before they serve on a jury because of the potential bias it may cause in their decision making.
Meta-Analysis: Steblay et al. (1999)
This comprehensive meta-analysis investigated the effect of pre-trial publicity on juror verdicts.
Scope:
- 44 empirical studies analyzed
- 5,755 subjects represented
Key Findings:
- Those exposed to negative pre-trial publicity were more likely to judge the defendant guilty compared to those exposed to less or no negative pre-trial publicity
- Effect was stronger in cases involving murder, sexual abuse or drugs
- Effect was stronger when there were multiple pieces of negative information
- The effect increased with greater length of time between exposure to the publicity and judgement
Research Study: Ogloff and Vidmar (1994)
This study examined television as a form of pre-trial publicity using a real child sexual abuse case with extensive pre-trial publicity.
Key Findings:
- Potential jurors expressed negative bias in the presence of negative pre-trial publicity
- Jurors were unaware of the biases they held
- Television publicity alone, or television and printed articles combined, had a greater influence on potential jurors than printed media alone
Implications: This raises concerns in the current digital era of television-based news being available 24 hours a day, and the constant access to online news, increasing the potential for biases to occur.
Research Study: Kovera (2002)
Kovera's study demonstrated that any type of media exposure can influence jury decision making, not just negative exposure.
Method:
- Two rape cases with varied media exposure used
- Types: pro-defence (positive), pro-prosecution (negative), and neutral
Findings:
- Jurors (undergraduate students) who watched a pro-defence rape trial reported they needed more evidence to convict someone of rape
- Compared to participants who watched a pro-prosecution rape trial, who required less evidence for conviction
Research Study: Ruva and LeVasseur (2012)
This study undertook content analyses of 30 mock-jury deliberations to examine the influence of pre-trial publicity.
Key Findings:
- Pre-trial publicity exposure influences both the interpretation and discussion of trial evidence during deliberations
- Jurors exposed to negative publicity were more likely to discuss ambiguous trial facts in a manner that supported the prosecution's case
- They rarely discussed facts in a manner that supported the defence's case
- Jurors exposed to pre-trial publicity were either unwilling or unable to adhere to instructions telling them not to discuss any pre-trial publicity
- Jurors rarely corrected jury members who mentioned pre-trial publicity
Whilst there has been extensive research undertaken about jury decision making, there are several issues to consider when evaluating the reliability of such studies.
Mock Jury Research: Sample Limitations
A large amount of research is conducted with research participants, often students, being asked to make decisions in a mock trial setting. This is not a representative sample of the population.
Bornstein's (1999) meta-analysis of mock jury research found that whilst there is little difference in the decisions of students versus non-student mock juries, any differences that are evident suggest that students tend to be more lenient than other populations.
The information summarising a criminal offence is also presented in a written format rather than watching it unfold in a real trial. A real jury will be influencing the decision of a real judge, so it has serious consequences for a defendant. This is not the case in mock trials and may affect how seriously the participants take the experiment. Whilst experimental research in laboratories can isolate variables, this approach fails to account for the fact that jury members in actual trials are subject to a wider range of factors that can influence their decisions.
Ecological Validity Concerns
Findings of laboratory research into jury decision making do not have the realism of a real trial. However, Nemeth (1977) found that there was no difference in jury decision making within mock trials for those presented in the form of a written summary or when staged live.
This provides reassurances that the way in which the mock trial is conducted will not affect the outcome of the decision making. Researchers can therefore select the mock-trial approach most suited to their research aims without concern that this in itself will influence the findings.
In the past, real jury members have been asked to complete self-reported questionnaires after the trial has ended. There are limitations involved in self-report data, but this provides a rare opportunity to obtain information about decision making from a real-life situation. This is likely to provide a more reliable account than that of mock trials. Asking real-life jurors may provide information about what they did do, whereas in a mock trial, it can only be recorded what a participant would do.
Evaluation of defendant characteristics research
As much of the psychological research in the area of defendant characteristics is not fully controlled for all variables, it is not always possible to establish cause and effect. Experimental research can isolate variables but does not account for the fact that actual jury members are subject to a range of factors that can influence their decision making, unlike in a laboratory setting, hence why cause and effect cannot be established.
Caution About Establishing Causation
Without a research study that controls all possible variables, we need to be cautious that we do not say for definite that the characteristics influence decision making. There may be other factors, besides the characteristics of the defendant, that influence the jury member's decision making.
Other potential factors:
- Their own past experiences of victimisation for a similar offence, which may bias them regarding specific offences
- The defendant may remind the jury member of someone they know and can change their views based on this
- The jury member may have been uncertain about the defendant's guilt and have been persuaded by the arguments of other jury members during deliberation
There are many factors internal to each individual jury member that can also influence decisions. These factors extend beyond the race, accent or other characteristics of the defendant.
Laboratory vs Real-World Settings
Research investigating the influence of race and accent has typically been undertaken in controlled settings such as laboratories. These do not create a realistic jury setting and are therefore not considered ecologically valid. Real juries may react differently in real life trial settings.
Counterpoint: Laboratory settings allow for greater control of the information presented, which helps researchers to place greater emphasis on specific variables, such as the accent of the defendant, which might not be noticed within a trial setting.
Different countries have different legal processes. Research undertaken in one country may not apply to other countries, as the role of the jury or the influence of their decisions may vary.
Cross-Cultural and International Considerations
Research undertaken in one country may not apply to other countries, as the role of the jury or the influence of their decisions may vary.
Example: Some states in America carry the death penalty for some offences. The effect of finding someone guilty in America for a serious crime may influence the jury in a different way compared with countries that do not use the death penalty. This will make comparison to different legal jurisdictions potentially inaccurate.
Best Practice: It is helpful to know in which countries studies were conducted, as this may have an impact on the extent to which they will be applicable to other countries or cultures, and if not, why they are not applicable.
Remember!
Key Points to Remember:
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Jury decisions can be influenced at multiple stages: pre-trial (through media publicity and schemas), during trial (through defendant characteristics, expert testimony and story construction), and post-trial (through conformity, minority influence and social loafing)
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Defendant characteristics such as race, attractiveness and accent can significantly bias jury decision making based on stereotypes, though these effects are complex and may vary depending on the type of crime and composition of the jury
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Pre-trial publicity, particularly emotional publicity and television coverage, can create lasting biases that jurors may be unaware of and unable to ignore, even when instructed to do so
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Research into jury decision making faces methodological challenges, including lack of ecological validity in laboratory settings and ethical limitations preventing the deliberate exposure of real jurors to potentially biasing information
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Legal systems vary internationally, and findings from research in one jurisdiction may not be directly applicable to others due to differences in legal processes, jury roles and potential consequences of verdicts