Graham Davies Legal Psychology

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Graham DaviesLegal Psychology

• Week 7
• Juries

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Some Facts about English Juries Involved in
only around 3 of all criminal cases in England
and Wales 96 heard by magistrates (summary
trials) Around since 1220 to decide guilt
of the accused Called to court, allocated by
lot in groups of 12 Excluded
mentally ill, those with a serious criminal
record Now included doctors, dentists,
servicemen, MPs, judges and magistrates Age
range 18-70 about 480,000 people a year sit on
juries
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Continuing controversy over jury effectiveness

• Juries are the lamp that shows freedom
• lives (Lord Devlin)
• It is asking the ignorant to use the
• incomprehensible to decide the
• unknowable (Judge Hillier Zobel
• after the O.J.Simpson trial in 1992).
• A unique feature of the adversarial legal
  system, but currently under attack

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Concerns over Juries

• Representatives of juries and grounds for
  exemption
• Conscientiousness of juries (The jury
• from hell, 1996)
• Alternatives to juries

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Research Methods

• Research on actual juries and jurors
• - currently banned in England and Canada, but
  not in the USA
• Mock Jury studies
• - problems of realism (Konecni Ebbesen,
  1992)
• Shadow juries (McCabe Purves, 1974)
• - but do they think the same way?

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Issues around Representativeness
Jury size participation versus spread of
opinion (Saks Marti, 1997) Peremptory
challenges (UK) and voir dire and jury
profiling(USA) Juror attitudes and
demographics (Devine et al. 2001) Choice
of Foreman (Strodtbeck Hook, 1961)
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Issues Around
Conscientiousness Impact of early polling on
final decision (McCabe Purves, 1974)
Group polarisation (Myers Kaplan, 1976)
Understanding of legal terms Only 43 understand
the rules (Matthews et al, 2004) Recall of
details of evidence (Hastie et al. 1983)
Content of deliberations (Clifford Kapardis,
1978) Pre-trial publicity (Padawar-Singer
Berlin, 1974)
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Remedial Measures to Assist Jurors Taking
of notes (Horowitz Bordens, 2002)
Jury-friendly presentation of information (20
improvement APU, 1986) Judges directions
(Ellwork et al., 1982) Glossary of legal
terms (55 improvement in comprehension
APU, 1986)
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Outcome Measures Chicago Jury Project
(Kalven Zeisal, 1966) - 555 judges
rated right outcome in 3,576 Trials
- Jury and Judge agreed 80 of the time
Birmingham Jury Study (Baldwin McConville,
1979) - 5 judge said innocent jury said
guilty - 20 judge said guilty jury
said innocent
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What are the alternatives ? Royal
Commission on Criminal Justice (1993)
Auld Committee (2001) examined
alternatives Judge sitting with lay
assessors - recommended by Auld (2001)
for complex fraud cases Judge sitting with
magistrates - recommended as alternative
for either way offences (Auld) -
Magistrates will now try more severe cases with
increased sentencing powers (up to a years
imprisonment)
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Arguments for Change

• Unrepresentative juries not the Verdict of
  your peers
• - Auld on deferred sitting and racial
  minorities
• Concerns over the ability of jurors to deal with
  complex or long-drawn-out cases
• - Judge only now permitted in trials involving
  multiple charges
• Jury nobbling intimidation and fear among
  jurors
• Cost of jury trials (13,500 per trial)-but
  do honest citizens need to clear their names?

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Arguments Against Change

• Right of jury to obey a higher law and
  acquit in the interests of natural justice
• - anti-Trident protesters (2001) and
• genetically modified crops (1999)
• - right of prosecution to appeal against
  perverse verdicts (Auld)
• In the absence of proper research, juries will
  continue to be the black box of the legal system