Pretrial Publicity Can get information from a multitude of outlets o TV o Internet o Radio o Gossip o Twitter o Etc Constitutional Conflict 1st Amendment Freedom of speech freedom of the press 6th Amendment Right to a speedy public trial before an impartial jury Can you give somebody a fair trial given the media coverage o Does the media exposure affect the fairness of the trial o Can you get an impartial jury o If not is there a way to remedy that Research Experimental Studies o Typical laboratory studies o Give participants a biased article about the trial Then ask how they would side if they were jurors o Arguably not like a real trial scenario Field Studies o Field studies actually interview people for a particular case o Have you been exposed to this story What have you seen What is your opinion of the defendant o Much more connected to the reality of whatever media exposure happens in the general population Specific pretrial publicity o About a specific case General pretrial publicity o General cases o Types of media which are most least effective Can impact people s view of the defendant s character o Whether they like them o Whether their sympathetic to them o Whether or not he s guilty o Final verdicts o Find defendant liable in a civil case o Stories that negatively portray the defendant raise the odds that he she is seen as guilty Research hasn t looked at the potency of online knowledge versus TV or print Most media stories are about heinous cases Great degree of slant and opinion in new stories these days Kovera Study 2002 Pro defense neutral and pro prosecution TV report General story about rape edited to make it pro defense pro offender and pro prosecution pro victim Date rape case presented PRO DEFENSE PRO OFFENDER More evidence of More corroborating More evidence from consent evidence witness NEUTRAL More evidence about victim s credibility o People overestimate the degree to which false accusations happen o Victim blaming PRO PROSECUTION PRO VICTIM More evidence about victim s credibility o Same as neutral What the participants wanted to get In terms of wanting more effort about the perpetrator s responsibility women wanted more information while men didn t o When they were presented the pro defense video If you include a story about rape sexual assault in addition to other stories they give more importance to the sexual assault than the other parts of the case Civil Cases Impact on decisions Impact on damage blame No impact on amount rewarded If you gave participants a story about the defendant that was negative towards him her they would overwhelmingly vote in favor of the plaintiff o Also blamed them more for the damages o But it had no impact on the amount rewarded If the judge gives exact instructions on how they need to evaluate it does not take away the media effect o Judge is insufficient of dealing with the affect of pretrial publicity o Applies to criminal cases as well o Has more of an affect on civil cases Field Studies Knowledge of the crime o People will be more knowledgeable about the case than they would have without the media coverage More likely to prejudge More knowledgeable about incriminating facts that would be inadmissible o Include inadmissible information that people believe o Imply causation If people have prejudices they tend to be stable and are resistant to being swayed by others o Problem because they re supposed to be decided on evidence not on prejudice Remedies None of them are perfect they all have their problems 1 Continuance o Put it off o Postpone so that the pre trial publicity lessens due to time o Messes with speedy trial o Impacts memory Details become fuzzy o Doesn t do anything about the attitudinal biases 2 Expanded voir dire o Try to get more information on whether or not people have biases and whether or not they re coming from media outlets o May have people who are unaware of their biases o Certain biases are socially undesirable to admit to 3 Judicial instructions o Don t negate the media effect Some studies show that it doesn t even put a dent in it o Boomerang effect if you tell someone to ignore it they think about it more 4 Imported jurors o School bus remedy 1 o Bring jurors to the case to remove the media effect if it s localized o Jury of your peers concept is challenged o Expensive o Time consuming o Quite rare 5 Change of venue o School bus remedy 2 o Move the case to another jurisdiction to remove the media effect if it s localized to a place with a similar demographic o Jury of your peers concept is challenged o Expensive o Time consuming Change of Venue Surveys Keep in mind all about whether or not the person can get a fair trial Survey and questions o Plan and design survey around media o Have to query about the media effect without giving away what you re Do it without exposing the nature of what you re doing doing Training of interviewers Drawing of the sample o Usually interviews are done over the phone o Can no longer randomly dial land lines to get a good sample due to cell o If you use only land lines you get a skewed representation of the phones demographic Missing younger people o More expensive to call cell phone Have to hand dial cell phones but can let a machine dial land lines o Have to show that the sample from where the case is versus elsewhere expresses a significant difference between the 2 Presenting results o Neutrally present the science o Do do not have a media effect o Does does not matter where it is o Challenged on scientific admissibility evidence