Behind closed doors: the effect of pretrial publicity on jury deliberations

Abstract

Content analyses of 30 mock-jury deliberations were performed to explore whether pretrial publicity (PTP) affects the content of jury deliberations. The pattern of results suggests that PTP has a powerful effect on jury verdicts and that PTP exposure can influence the interpretation and discussion of trial evidence during deliberations. Jurors who were exposed to negative PTP (anti-defendant) were significantly more likely than their non-exposed counterparts to discuss ambiguous trial facts in a manner that supported the prosecution's case, but rarely discussed them in a manner that supported the defense's case. This study also found that PTP exposed jurors were either unwilling or unable to adhere to instructions admonishing them not to discuss PTP and rarely corrected jury members who mentioned PTP. Finally, this research provides insight into how PTP imparts its biasing effect on jury decision making.

Keywords:

• jury decision making
• jury deliberation effects
• pretrial juror bias
• decision making
• mock juries

Notes

1. The current paper involves data that were not included in the Ruva et al. (2007) article (i.e. videotaped mock-jury deliberations). Although the authors videotaped the mock-jury deliberations with a desire to one day analyze them, these deliberations were not analyzed until after the original article was published. The reasons for this are multi-fold. First, it took several years to locate software that would make the daunting task of content analyzing deliberating juries more feasible and reliable than methods used in previous research (e.g. text-based analyses of transcribed deliberations). Second, after locating this software it took another two years to develop the coding scheme and manual, train coders, resolve all inter-coder disagreements, and analyze these data. The difficult and time-consuming nature of content analyzing interacting groups is largely responsible for the dearth of research in this area and is responsible for the delay in analyzing these data.

2. The original experiment (Ruva et al., 2007) utilized a 2 (PTP: exposed vs non-exposed)×2 (juror collaboration: collaborating vs nominal) between-subjects hierarchical design with 25 groups (juries) per condition. Because this paper's focus is the content analysis of jury deliberations we only present the collaborative procedures and data. To be included in these analyses a jury deliberation videotape must have the following characteristics: (1) good audio and video quality and (2) all of the jurors in the video could be adequately viewed and their behavior coded (e.g. whether they were talking). In a few of the tapes one juror would occlude another for most of the deliberation, making it difficult for the coders to determine when the occluded juror was talking. These requirements resulted in a sample of 14 exposed juries and 16 non-exposed juries.

3. Although research contrasting the decisions and judgments made by college students with those of community members at large has usually shown little if any difference (Bornstein, 1999; Cutler, Penrod, & Dexter, 1990), some researchers suggest that a college sample may not generalize well to jury-eligible adults because of cognitive and attitudinal differences (Diamond, 1997; Weiten & Diamond, 1979).

4. This training was funded by a College of Arts and Sciences’ Faculty Research and Development grant from the University of South Florida.

5. All of the analyses presented in this paper were also conducted using a reduced sample that included only the six-person juries (n=23 juries). There were no differences in the findings as a function of sample (reduced sample of six-person juries vs all juries). Therefore, the analyses including all of the juries (N=30) are presented in the paper.