PSYC 371 Exam II Study Guide
50 Cards in this Set
| Front | Back |
|---|---|
|
What are the primary purposes of trials?
|
Find "the truth", a test of "credibility", and conflict-resolving ritual.
|
|
What are the steps in the trial process?
|
Preliminary actions, jury selection, the trial, sentencing, the appellate process.
|
|
What does the 6th amendment guarantee?
|
"...the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed"
|
|
What does a "jury of your peers" mean? Is this relevant to our current system?
|
It means a jury of those that are roughly similar to you. It is something we stand by, but through jury selection, can be very skewed.
|
|
What is a venire? How is it formed?
|
The entire panel from which a jury is drawn, registered voters and driver's license or ID card, surveys and in-person interviews. There are exemptions.
|
|
What is voir dire?
|
Juror selection (juror exclusion, really).
|
|
What are challenges for cause?How are they used? What are the restrictions? What are examples?
|
A request that a prospective juror be dismissed because there is a specific and forceful reason to believe the person cannot be fair, unbiased or capable of serving as a juror. If valid, they are unlimited. Examples include inability to be unbiased (association with party or prior experie…
|
|
What are peremptory challenges? How are they used? What are the restrictions? What are examples?
|
Real or imaginary reasons to exclude a possible juror. They are used to exclude those jurors that the attorney thinks would be harmful for their case. There are some restrictions- can be challenged (gender, race, etc.), but mostly they have a limited amount. Must give a neutral reason. Tr…
|
|
Baston V. Kentucky (1986)
|
Prosecutor used his peremptory challenges to remove the 4 African-Americans from the venire. Batson was convicted by an all white jury. Ruled that it must be race neutral.
|
|
What are different strategies/approaches used during voir dire (e.g. black sheep effect, etc.)? Identify examples for each.
|
Similarity-leniency hypothesis - empathy toward similar other.
Black sheep effect - punish people with whom they share group membership and reflect poorly on the group.
The "Poison Pill" - hung jury. You want the jury to be disagreeable people - the defense can benefit here. Unethical.
…
|
|
How do demographic variables, such as gender, influence the verdicts of trials?
|
Deliberation is important- how the jurors interact with each other matters. Apparently, tall extroverted men are influential.
|
|
If you were the prosecuting attorney would you prefer an authoritarian juror? Someone with an internal or external locus of control? Some one who believes in the "just world" hypothesis?
|
Would want an authoritarian juror. Juror with an internal locus of control. "Just world" believer.
|
|
If you were the defense attorney would you prefer an authoritarian juror? Someone with an internal or external locus of control? Some one who believes in the "just world" hypothesis?
|
Would not want an authoritarian juror. Juror with external locus of control. "Just world" believer would be less sympathetic.
|
|
What is extralegal information? What is problematic about it?
|
Appearance, race, background, proir record, personality. Jurors can become biased based on these issues.
|
|
What does the Federal Rules of Evidence 403 permit the courts to do?
|
"The court may exclude relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of one or more of the following: unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, wasting time, or needlessly presenting cumulative evidence."
|
|
Why is prior record evidence often excluded? When can prior record evidence be introduced?
|
It is excluded so people will not assume guilt, but it is permissible in sexual cases as it creates a sexual profile for an offender.
|
|
What does the liberation hypothesis state?
|
When the evidence is comprehensible and unambiguous, jurors rely on evidentiary strength. When the evidence is ambiguous, jurors feel free to rely on stereotypes, emotions, and biases.
|
|
How does the reactance theory apply to jurors? How does the theory of thought suppression play a similar role?
|
Jurors may be more likely to use inadmissible evidence because their sense of freedom has been threatened; when told what to do, they don't feel free to use own judgement and will fixate upon the inadmissible evidence. Thought suppression is when attempting to disregard inadmissible evide…
|
|
What are some ways that the damage caused by introducing inadmissible evidence to jurors can be contained?
|
Providing a reason for inadmissibility clarifies the scope of current deliberations and explains how the information could be misleading. Jury deliberation helps as Jurors are forced to explain their reasoning based on other factual evidence and are more aware of biases.
|
|
In terms of juror instructions, what is the benefit of the primacy effect?
|
Jurors are able to attend to and more appropriately use evidence when provided with the rules and requirements beforehand
|
|
What is the definition of juror bias? How does predecisional distortion bias juror evaluation and decision-making?
|
A predisposition to interpret and understand information based on personal past experience. There is confirmation bias- they decide before, then search for evidence to support that and discredit other evidence.
|
|
How does jury deliberation influence juror biases?
|
It allows jurors to evaluate evidence more carefully, challenge biases and prejudices of others, and counteract predecisional distortion.
|
|
What is the relationship between predeliberation biases and evidentiary strength?
|
Decrease with increases in evidentiary strength and increase with increases in evidentiary ambiguity.
|
|
According to the story model, how do jurors reach a verdict?
|
Jurors may construct a story based on evidence, personal experience, and knowledge of elements of a story. Jurors them map verdict options onto their story and determine which verdict best coincides with their constructed narrative.
|
|
What are some of the more controversial juror reforms? What are the advantages and disadvantages of allowing jurors to discuss evidence mid-trial?
|
Allowing jurors to pose screened questions to witnesses. Allowing jurors to discuss evidence mid-trial. Advantages: Improved recollection, greater group cohesion, and coherent framework. Disadvantages: Premature judgements, interpersonal conflicts, and diminished quality of deliberation.
|
|
What are the two essential functions of jurors? How are these related to neural structures and activity?
|
Assessing responsibility and determining appropriate punishment.
Responsibility is categorical and linked to activity in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Punishment is linked to activity in regions associated with affective processing- the limbic system.
|
|
What is the most common method used by courts to control for pretrial publicity? What is the most effective method?
|
...
|
|
What is the sympathy hypothesis?
|
The assumption that jurors' decisions will be influenced by feelings of sympathy.
|
|
What is the history of trial consulting, as discussed in class? (e.g., what trial was considered the "start" of the trial consultation movement in the U.S? What trial brought it into the public eye?)
|
"Harrisburg 7" (1971) Vietname protesters. Defense surveyed over 1000 Harrisburg residents and identified demographic profiles of jurors' sympathetic to their case. Ended with a hung jury. O.J. Simpson brought it into the public eye.
|
|
What is scientific jury selection?
|
The use of social science techniques and expertise to choose favorable juries during a criminal or civil trial.
|
|
In a general sense, how prevalent is trial consulting? Does it work? Who typically has access to it and who does not?
|
It is pretty prevalent, and probably works, but evidence is weak. It typically is used for the wealthy, those that can afford it.
|
|
What strategies/tools do consultants use? Are those "tools" ethical?
|
Community surveys, focus groups, mock trials, pretrial investigation of potential jurors (unethical), voir dire, and post selection tools.
|
|
Understand the potentially "unfair" aspects of trial consulting.
|
Shields the rich and powerful.
|
|
What were the ideas offered regarding methods to regulate the work of trial consultants?
|
Requiring disclosure of use of consultants or additional info (surveys), minimizing voir dire questioning, minimizing or elminating peremtory challenges, barring investigations of potential jurors, outlaw consulting by non-lawyers, licensing, establishing professional standards, and appoi…
|
|
What does the Yerkes-Dodson law of arousal state? What stage of memory does this principle primarily impact?
|
Efficiency of memory is highest at moderate arousal, and lower at high and low arousal. It impacts encoding primarily.
|
|
What is the weapons focus effect? What two explanations were presented in lecture to account for the weapons focus effect?
|
People fixate on weapons more frequently and for a greater duration compared to an item that is not unusual within the context. The presence of a weapon increases cognitive arousal and diverts attention to the detriment of memory for surrounding details. It deals with perception.
|
|
What are the three stages of memory? Which stage is affected by photo biased line-ups?
|
Encoding, storage, and retrieval. It deals with retrieval, but also you can encode faces by seeing them in a lineup.
|
|
What is unconscious transference? According to this phenomenon, why may a bystander be accused of committing the witnessed crime?
|
Information retrieval is accurate, in a sense, but irrelevant to the event in question. You have encoded the bystander's face, but transferred it to the offender.
|
|
What is post-event information? How does this concept relate to retroactive interference?
|
Retroactive interference; information presented later interferes with the ability to retain previously encoded information. When you see something or hear something after the event and you change the original memory.
|
|
How might word choice during interviewing influence eyewitness recall?
|
It is suggestibility- word choice can make someone change the event in their mind (cars hitting and smashing).
|
|
What is the relationship between positive reinforcement of eyewitnesses and witness confidence?
|
Feedback that other eyewitnesses made the same identification or indications that the witness made the "correct" choice inflate witness confidence. Positive feedback also leads witnesses to distort their potential for accuracy (e.g., view, duration).
|
|
According to the textbook, what is the relationship between eyewitness gender and accuracy of lineup identifications?
|
There is no clear evidence that one is superior to the other. Women seem slightly more likely to predict correctly, but also slightly more likely to make an error- as they are more likely to pick from a line up.
|
|
Be familiar with the 60 minutes (CBS news) video from class. What are some explanations for Jennifer Thompson's misidentification?
|
Memory not a recording, weapons focus effect, high stress situation, relative best choice & reinforced... suspect looked like offender.
|
|
Are young kids accurate witnesses compared to adults?
|
Generally yes, but suggestion is especially important.
|
|
What are the special considerations involved with young witnesses?
|
Suggestibility, concerns about general accuracy, potentially traumatizing experiences for child victims forced to testify, but defendants have a right to "confront their accusers".
|
|
Be familiar with Coy v. Iowa (1988) in relation to procedural modifications for young witnesses. What impact do those modifications have on the witness's testimony and on juror's perception of the testimony?
|
Coy V. Iowa: Literally "blocked out" the defendant with a one-way screen. Ruled violation of confrontation clause. Defendant's right to confront his accusers was not outweighed "by the necessity of protecting the victims of sexual abuse".
|
|
Be familiar with Maryland v. Craig (1990) in relation to procedural modifications for young witnesses. What impact do those modifications have on the witness's testimony and on juror's perception of the testimony?
|
Maryland V. Craig: Upheld law permitting a child to give testimony in a different part of the courthouse and transmitted to the courtroom (CCTV).
|
|
What is hyperamnesia?
|
The ability to recall events and memories inaccessible to consciousness; in the unconscious. Remembering events from the youngest years of life-repressed memories.
|
|
What occurs when an individual confabulates? How does confabulation relate to memory hardening?
|
The production or more or less plausible memories that are actually fabricated, distorted or misinterpreted. Memory hardening is confidence in false memories dispite disconfirming evidence (e.g. Lost in the Mall). They think the memory is real- it is vivid to them.
|
|
What is the significance of Rock v. Arkansas? Is all hypnosis testimony automatically excluded
|
Defendant underwent hypnosis and story was the same under hypnosis. US Supreme Court ruled that excluding all hypnotically refreshed testimony impermissibly infringed upon the right of a criminal defendant to testify of her own behalf. Defendant can testify- but psychoanalyst may not.
|
PSYC 371 Exam II Study Guide