Voir Dire and Social Desirability: Does “ Prehabilitation ” Reveal or Conceal Juror Bias ?

1. Results VoirDire and Social Desirability: Does “Prehabilitation” Reveal or Conceal Juror Bias? Mykol Hamilton, Hillary Henize, Cadey Phipps, & Leah Storch Centre College • 1.The one-way ANOVA was significant. We conducted planned pair-wise comparisons as follows. • 2. As hypothesized, on 3 of 4 DV’s there was significantly more bias disclosure in the Good Introduction condition than in the Bad Introduction condition (both with the ‘Good’ Questions) • PUT ASIDE PTP BIAS: More admission of difficulty putting aside bias by participants in Good Intro (M = 4.11, SD = 1.49) than Bad Intro (M = 2.68, SD = 1.53), t(36) = 2.90, p = .006. • PRESUME INNOCENCE: More admission of difficulty with Good (M = 3.84, SD = 1.17) than Bad Intro (M = 2.95, SD = 1.22), t(36) = 2.31, p = .03. • DEFENDANT GUILTY VS. INNOCENT: More disclosure of guilty bias in Good (M = 4.68, SD = 0.82) than Bad Intro (M = 4.05, SD = .78), t(36) = 2.43, p = .02. • 3. Participants who heard the Good Introduction and Good Questions disclosed just as much bias in their answers to the four questions as did those in the Control (baseline) condition, demonstrating that a non-prehabilitative approach to jury selection (Good-Good) promotes bias disclosure. • 4. Participants in the Bad-Bad condition disclosed the same amount of bias in their answers as did participants in the Bad-Good condition, suggesting that once participants hear the prehabilitative introduction, the damage is done; answering prehabilitative vs. disclosure-promoting attorney questions makes no difference at that point. • 5. For the 18 people in the Bad-Bad condition, the higher their susceptibility to social desirability pressure (higher Marlowe-Crowe Social Desirability Scale scores), • the less they admitted difficulty presuming innocence, r (16) = -.512, p= .01. • the less they said Merrill might not get a fair trial, r (16) = -.401, p= .049. • the borderline significantly less they admitted they thought he was guilty, r (16) = -.329 p= .09. • the borderline significantly less they admitted difficulty putting aside pretrial publicity information, r (16) = -.39, p= .06. Jury Consultant, Mykol Hamilton Abstract In a highly realistic mock individual voir dire experiment, we examined the detrimental role of “prehabilitation” in high pretrial publicity cases. When judges and attorneys, before and during individual voir dire interviews, emphasize the importance of putting aside biasing information and presuming innocence, prospective jurors tend to conceal their biases. When we tested the effects of prehabilitative vs. disclosure-promoting judge statements and attorney questions on prospective jurors' bias disclosure in a mock jury study, bias disclosure was higher in conditions with the disclosure-promoting judge statement. In light of the results, we suggest modification of current voir dire techniques for the improvement of juror bias identification. Prospective Juror Clerk Defense Attorney 1 The Defendant Prosecuting Attorney 1 Defense Attorney 2 Judge Prosecuting Attorney 2 Individual Voir Dire Interview, Dr. Steven Hall Murder Trial 2010 • Introduction • The purpose of voir dire jury selection is to expose bias in prospective jurors. However, the interests of judges and attorneys may compromise this goal (Hamilton, Augustus, & Melloan, 2011). • Research shows that voir dire practices may pressure prospective jurors to conceal rather than reveal bias. Hamilton (2010) conducted a change of venue (COV) survey in a highly publicized murder trial in Boyle County, KY. 57% of the 400 telephone respondents believed the defendant, Dr. Steven Hall, was guilty. The judge denied the COV motion, which allowed Hamilton et al. to compare COV survey and individual voir dire bias rates. In contrast with the 57% COV bias rate, only 22% of prospective jurors revealed bias in individual voir dire. • Hamilton et al. then content analyzed the videotaped individual voir dire interviews. They identified a practice they dubbed “prehabilitation”: Both before and early in the process of individual voirdire questioning, the judge and attorneys were already trying to remedy potential juror bias. • For example, the judge introduced each interview with a statement such as the following (emphasis ours): “This is the portion of the trial that talks about pretrial publicity… about what you heard and its effect on your ability to keep from forming a preconceived notion, and your ability to look at the other side of the story.”Prehabilitative question example: “We need to know if you are capable of remaining objective in this case. Based on the information you have encountered thus far, do you believe …” • Such prehabilitativeintroduction and questions might lead jurors to suppress their opinions in order to not seem incompetent and close-minded, and may partially explain the discrepancy in guilty bias between the 400 COV survey respondents vs. the prospective jurors. Method In a mock voir dire experiment, we compared the bias disclosure of prospective jurors in a baseline condition to conditions with varying degrees of prehabilitative social desirability pressure. We hypothesized that higher pressure would result in less disclosure. We realistically simulated individual voir dire interviews, telling our 69 college student participants that we were conducting the study in collaboration with the KY Circuit Court and KY Bar Association and that a judge and two attorneys (actually hired professional actors) would interview them about an actual murder case as if they were prospective jurors. The judge wore judicial robes and the attorneys wore suits and ties. We ran the study in a nicely appointed campus administrative building in order to create a formal atmosphere akin to that of a voir dire interview room in a courthouse, in a small room like the one in the Dr. Hall case, photo above. Participants read and listened to highly incriminating media coverage of the Carson Merrill murder case then filled out a paper-and-pencil version of our interview questions (baseline condition) or went to an individual voir dire interview room for questioning by the judge and attorneys. The judge gave aprehabilitative or disclosure-promoting introduction and the attorneys asked prehabilitative or disclosure-promoting questions (see adjacent text box), based on case transcripts from Hamilton et al. (2011). Finally, all participants completed the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale Short Form B. Dependent Measures: Participants answered four questions on 1-5 scales on which higher scores showed more disclosure. Question 1 asked how easy or difficult it would be to put aside PTP bias, Question 2 asked how easy or difficult it would be to presume innocence, Question 3 asked about likelihood of the accused receiving a fair trial, and Question 4 asked whether the participant leaned toward guilty or innocent. The Judge in front of Old Centre  5*       __________3*__________ ___________2*__________ ___________4*__________ *1-5: See corresponding number in Results BAD INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT BY JUDGE:   This is the portion of the jury selection process in which we will evaluate your competency as a fair and objective juror. We will be discussing pretrial publicity. We need to know what you have heard as well as its effect on your ability to remain impartial. So while you may very well have formed an opinion on this case, you must set it aside and start with a clean slate. This is not easily done; however it is what we require jurors to do.  Please remember that you are sworn to tell the truth. GOOD INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT BY JUDGE:   We are here to get a feel for what kind of information is out there in the media about this case. We are interested in hearing how you, personally, feel about the case as well as what you think community perceptions are. There are no right or wrong answers and we want you to feel as comfortable as possible sharing your honest thoughts and opinions. BAD ATTORNEY QUESTION EXAMPLE: Considering that as a juror in this trial you will be obliged to remain impartial, how easy or difficult will it be for you to put aside any preconceived notions about this case? GOOD ATTORNEY QUESTION EXAMPLE: In your honest opinion, would it be easy or difficult for you to put aside any preconceived notions about the case? Conclusions Our central hypothesis was strongly supported. A disclosure-promoting voir dire introductory statement by a judge leads to more disclosure of anti-defendant bias in prospective jurors than does a prehabilitative introductory statement. These and other results suggest improvements to individual voir dire that may help guarantee impartial juries. It is our hope that our findings can be used to educate the legal community on how to maximize juror disclosure of bias and uphold the defendant’s right to a fair and impartial jury. References Hamilton, M. C.  (August 2010). Final report on the change of venue survey for the Dr. Steven Hall case, District Court, Boyle County, KY. Hamilton, M. C., Augustus, A. N., & Melloan, J. (March, 2011). Voir dire, change of venue, and "legal desirability": Hidden jury bias in high PTP cases. Poster presented at the American Psychology-Law Society International Congress, Miami, FL.