Jury Decision Making

• Pre-trial publicity: what is pre-trial publicity?

  this is publicity surrounding the offence, the defendant or other information about the case which can influence schemas the jury has about those involved
• Pre-trial publicity: what is factual information?

  incriminate information about the defendant or the case such as: what happened during the crime, what weapon was used
• Pre-trial publicity: what is emotional information?

  this is information which can cause negative emotion to arise
• Pre-trial publicity: where can pre-trial publicity be found?

  it is communicated through the media, whether that be the news or social media
• Pre-trial publicity: what affect does pre-trial publicity have on the jury?

  it can create a perception of the defendant and other parties involved before official information has been released within the court
• Pre-trial publicity: what is the issue with pre-trial publicity and the perceptions which may be formed as a result?

  once there perceptions are formed they are hard to change
• Pre-trial publicity: what can influence a jury who is exposed to pre-trial publicity?


  a schema
• Pre-trial publicity: what affect can the juries schema have on the way they view the case in court?

  a jury members schema can alter their perception of the evidence they are presented with in court
• Post-trial: what is a post-trial key term?

  majority influence
• Pre-trial publicity: what is the majority influence?

  this is where the jury may follow the views of the majority, as they may feel pressured to conform
• Pre-trial publicity: what is a post-trial key term?

  normative influence
• Pre-trial publicity: what is normative influence?

  this may result from a jury member feeling the need to be socially approved, especially if there is others in the jury who intimidate you
• what are the affects of defendant characteristics on the jury?

  Baron + Byrne suggested that attractiveness does affect the jury decision making in response to how light the sentence is along with gaining sympathy from the jurors.
• what are the affects of defendant characteristics on the jury?

  studies using mock juries have found that race and ethnicity can affect the decisions made, white jurors in mock trials demonstrated a negative bias to black defendants during sentence decision making
• what are the effects of defendant characteristics on the jury?

  Dixon and Mahoney focused on the Birmingham accent and found there was a probable level of prejudice occurring toward those with a strong Birmingham accent compared to a non Birmingham accent.
• what did Dixon and Mahoney find about the effects of defendant characteristics on the jury?


  when mock jurors were given transcript and tape recordings, it was found that those with a strong "Brummie" accent were considered more guilty