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ABSTRACT
Prior research on pretrial publicity has produced mixed results and a roughly equal number of studies show an effect, show no effect, or show mixed results. We explored the effects of (a) homogenous vs. heterogeneous exposure (whether deliberating jurors were all exposed to the same publicity or not) and (b) pre-deliberation queries as potential contributors to mixed results. We found an effect for positive but not negative publicity on conviction rates but not evidence ratings. Exposure heterogeneity appears to explain these differences and pre-deliberation queries did appear to play some role in the obtained outcomes. Overall these findings do not replicate a robust publicity effect and future research should consider how homogeneous exposure and pre-deliberation opinion queries influence results.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Christine Ruva for providing trial stimulus materials, Leo Arias for his help in preparing the manuscript, and the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable feedback. We wish to thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on the manuscript. We also wish to thank the many graduate students at Cal. State Fullerton who assisted with the data collection and entry.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
ORCID
Jon Bruschke http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9829-710X