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Reaching a Verdict Persuading a Jury

Reaching a Verdict Persuading a Jury. Persuading a Jury: Pennington & Hastie. Aims of todays session. Outline the Pennington & Hastie study Ensure understanding of all relevant elements of the study in relation to a 10mark question

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Reaching a Verdict Persuading a Jury

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  1. Reaching a VerdictPersuading a Jury Persuading a Jury: Pennington & Hastie

  2. Aims of todays session • Outline the Pennington & Hastie study • Ensure understanding of all relevant elements of the study in relation to a 10mark question • Through small group work, consider and develop evaluation points in relation to a 15 mark question

  3. Persuading a Jury: effect of order on testimony • Should counsel present their case as a story unfolding in chronological order? • Should they use the benefit of the primacy-recency effect* to present their best witnesses first or last? • Would this disrupt the order of events in the jurors mind? *When presented with a list of words, we tend to remember the first few and last few words and are more likely to forget those in the middle ~ Early words get transferred into long term memory (primacy effect) because the we have time to rehearse the word, Words from the end go into short term memory (recency effect) Words in the middle have been in our memory too long to be held in short term memory (STM) but not long enough to be put into long term memory (LTM)

  4. Persuading a Jury:Pennington & Hastie Title Effects of memory structure on judgement Aim • To investigate whether or not story evidence summaries are true causes of the final verdict decisions and the extent t which story order affects confidence in those decisions

  5. Persuading a Jury:Pennington & Hastie Methodology • A laboratory experiment • The 2nd of two reported in this study Participants • 130 students from Northwestern University and Chicago University • Paid for taking part in a one-hour experiment • Allocated to one of 4 conditions • Roughly equal numbers

  6. Persuading a Jury:Pennington & Hastie Procedure • Participants listened to a tape recording of the stimulus trial (Massachusetts v Caldwell) and then responded to written questions • Told to reach either a guilty or not guilty verdict on a murder charge • Asked to rate their confidence in their own decision on a 5 point scale • They were separated by partitions and did not interact with each other

  7. Persuading a Jury:Pennington & Hastie Procedure continued • In the story-order condition, evidence was arranged in its natural order • In the witness order condition, evidence items were arranged in the closest to the original trial • The defence items comprised 39 not-guilty pieces of evidence and the prosecution items, 39 guilty pieces of evidence from the original case • In all cases, the stimulus trial began with the indictment and followed the normal procedure, ending with the judges instructions

  8. The Conditions

  9. % of participants choosing a verdict of guilty of murder by prosecution and defence order conditions

  10. Persuading a Jury:Pennington & Hastie Results • The table shows that story order persuaded more jurors of Caldwell’s guilt in the prosecution case • If the defence presented its evidence in witness order, even more jurors would find a guilty verdict • If the positions were reversed and the defence had the benefit of story order, the guilty rate drops to 31%

  11. Persuading a Jury:Pennington & Hastie Results continued • As predicted, the greatest confidence in their verdict was expressed by those who heard the defence or prosecution in story order • Least confidence was expressed by those who heard the two-witness order conditions

  12. Persuading a Jury:Pennington & Hastie Discussion • Because the primacy and recency effects were controlled for, Pennington & Hastie are confident that they have shown the persuasive effect of presenting information in story order • In this case there is a difference in the defence case, which seems not to be as persuasive as the prosecution case, even when presented as a story • Pennington & Hastie suggest the defence case in the original trial was not as plausible • The victim was drunk and lunged forward onto his assailant’s knife

  13. Tasks… • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaVZ0oc0bA&feature=player_detailpage

  14. Evaluation • In your pairs / small groups consider the following: • S&W of lab experiment method • Ethics of using this method to investigate jury behaviour • Any problems with the sample • Realism of set-up • Usefulness of situational explanations/effects of courtroom procedures on jury behaviour • Effect of controlling for primacy/recency effect • Research based on Western ideas of crime • Psychology as a science in way courtroom behaviour is being researched • Why is this study useful? • What recommendations would you make to lawyers?

  15. Additional tasks… 10 Marker ~ Describe relevant research of ways in which a jury may be persuaded Read through the introduction of ‘Use of an Expert Witness’

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