Social Psychology Professor Spikes TOPIC Law I Jury Selection Three Stage Process 1 Compile a master list of eligible citizens living in the community a Gathered via a voter registration list or some type of directory 2 Random sample from master list Impossible to test or survey an entire population a b Random sampling names in a hat etc 3 Voir dire Judge and lawyers question the prospective jurors for signs of bias Bias can sometimes refer to an entire community o Could have to move jury selection to outside of a community o Source of bias could be if you know one of the parties o Source of bias could be if you have formed an opinion already Peremptory Challenges when lawyers can reject a limited number of prospective jurors even if they are fair and open minded o Can do this without the judge s approval o EX a male who committed a crime is between the ages of 18 24 so they don t want male jurors between this age b c they might sympathize with him II Trail Lawyers as Intuitive Psychologists Lawyers rely on Implicit Personality Theories IPT and Stereotypes A set of assumptions that people make about how certain attributes are IPT related to each other and to behavior When do IPT become stereotypes o When we believe that all members of a group share the same attributes Can a lawyer predict a juror s verdict as per their the lawyer s intuitive rule of thumb or by how prospective jurors answer questions during voir dire o Researchers say NO o There are ways that they can have a better grasp on this scientific jury selection III Scientific Jury Selection Selecting jurors through surveys that yield correlations between demographics and trial relevant attitudes Harrisburg Seven o Use of jury consultants began with this case During the Vietnam War era o 1960s o the federal gov t prosecuted a group of anti war activists known as the Harrisburg Seven Case against the defendants o Strong o Trial was held in a very conservative city of Harrisburg Pennsylvania To help select a jury o A consultant surveyed the community by interviewing 840 residents Two kinds of information was gathered Demographics and Trial Relevant Attitudes 1 Demographics sex race age education level 2 Trial Relevant Attitudes Attitude Relevant Behaviors a Attitude towards government b Attitude towards the war c Political dissent Profile of ideal defense juror based on community survey o A female democrat without a religious preference employed in a white collar job or a skilled blue collar job o Trial ended in a hung jury in favor of acquittal O J Simpson Clark Black Women o Approximately 25 years after Harrisburg case o Both sides hired a jury consultant o Based on the pretrial survey both consultants predicted that African American women would be strong defenders of O J in his corner o Armed with this info when they were doing the Voir dire Defense would want more black women to defend him Prosecutor would want fewer black women to not defend him o Marsha Clark prosecutor Rejected the consultants advice in favor of her intuitive belief that black women would be outraged about O J s history of domestic violence o O J was found not guilty Research on SJS Using jury consultants is highly recommended Determining juror s attitudes from known information about their backgrounds can be successfully done through o Using a jury consultant o Also via mock trials IV Death Qualification In states that permit capital punishment jurors decide the verdict and the sentence Implemented in cases involving crimes punishable by death A special jury selection practice Judge will exclude those who say that they refuse to vote for the death penalty to avoid bias Phoebe Ellsworth Craig Haney et al As per the question are death qualified juries prone to convict o YES o They are more likely to vote guilty before and after deliberations Case of Lockhart v McCree Questioned if hundreds of prisoners on death row had been tried by juries that were biased against them o The issue was presented to the US Supreme Court It was supported by the APA Came armed with their psychologist and their literature supporting the possibility o Supreme Court rejected the APA s argument ruled that death qualification does not violate a defendant s right to a fair trial There is a need for alternative nonprejudicial methods for selecting capital juries For example o The literature shows that we should not necessarily exclude people who oppose capital punishment o Why Studies show that those individuals will consider the death penalty in certain horrific cases V Confession Evidence Police Interrogations Two Approaches 1 Pressure into submission via expressing certainty that a person is guilty and claiming to have damaging evidence against that person like fingerprints or video footage of them at the scene of the crime 2 Befriend the suspect offer sympathy give the suspect friendly advice blame the suspect s victim people fess up b c they feel like they re talking to a friend Risk of False Confession Why do innocent suspects confess to a crime that they did not commit a A person will comply to escape a bad situation 1 Compliance 2 Internalization a When an individual actually comes to believe that he she is guilty NOTE Saul Kassin and Katherine Kiechel 1996 Conducted research Is it really possible to get a person to confess to a crime they didn t commit Their research found that there are two factors that can increase the risk of false confession o When a suspect lacks a clear memory of the event o The presentation of false evidence They had students work in pairs and one of the member pair was a confederate Worked on a computer task Was a particular key they were told not to press on the computer or the computer will crash Eventually the program was rigged where the computer appeared to crash The confederate accused the real subject of pressing the key Initially all of them denied that they had pressed the key In the cases whereby they were told they were seen pressing the key they would confess Quite interesting though that even after the experiment even when they thought the experiment was over some of those same people confessed to others outside that they had pressed the key o Compliance during experiment o Internalization on the way out Confessions and the jury An Attributional Dilemma According to the attribution theory jurors should reject all confessions made in response to external pressure Why o People would overestimate internal factors and underestimate