Social Psychology & Law

Social Psychology and the Law Psychology in the Courtroom

Pre-trial

Courtroom Drama

Jury Deliberation

Post-conviction

Pre Trial: Jury Selection

In US, you have right to an “impartial” jury Is that right upheld? Jury selection is 3-step process

1.) Master list of eligible jurors

2.) Random sample taken from master list – these people are called for jury duty

3.) Voir dire – pretrial interview by judge and lawyers, to omit “biased” jurors

Jury Selection: Voir dire

Voir dire: Does it work? Peremptory challenges – lawyers can reject certain # of

jurors who seem unbiased without reasons Trial lawyers act as intuitive psychologists For example, the stereotypes are that:

Athletes are unsympathetic to fragile or injured victims Engineers are unemotional Men with beards resist authority

Jury Selection: Voir dire

Are these stereotypes accurate? Not really: For example, contrary to lawyer’s beliefs, people are

harsher toward same-race defendants when evidence is strong (Kerr et al., 1995)

In general, lawyers are not good at predicting jury voting by intuition (Olczak et al., 1991) or question-asking (Kerr et al., 1991)

“Scientific” Jury Selection

Hiring professional jury consultants to identify ideal jurors

Use survey methods that yield correlations between demographics and trial-relevant attitudes E.g, In OJ Simpson trial, black women were

identified as most sympathetic to OJ

Lawyers than ask potential jurors targeted personal questions to identify the “right” jurors

Jury Selection: Death Qualification Used in

capital cases Jury prescribes sentencing

Judge can exclude all potential jurors who say they are against the death penalty.

Does this tip the balance toward the death penalty? Yes! Jurors who are not opposed to the death penalty:

More likely to vote guilty in murder trial (Cowan et al., 1986) More concerned about crime, trustful of police, cynical toward defense

lawyers, etc. The death qualification process itself conveys that the defendant is

guilty!

Jury Selection: Death Qualification Lockhardt v McCree (1986) – Supreme Court case

questioning whether death row inmates deserved new trial because of biases in death qualification

APA presented exhaustive review of evidence Supreme Court dismissed the evidence, ruling that death

qualification does not bias juries.

Nonevidentiary Influences: Pretrial Publicity Does exposure to pretrial news stories corrupt

prospective jurors? Why is pretrial publicity potentially dangerous?

Contaminating Effects of Pretrial Publicity

From N.I. Kerr, G.P. Kramer, J.S. Carroll and J.J. Alfinin, (1982), "On the Effectiveness of Voir Dire in Criminal Cases with Prejudicial Pretrial Publicity: An Empirical Study," American University Law Review, 40, pp. 665-701. Reprinted with permission.

Nonevidentiary Influences: Inadmissible Testimony Why do people not always follow a judge’s order to

disregard inadmissible evidence? Added instruction draws attention Judge’s instruction to disregard may arouse

reactance. Hard to ignore information that seems relevant to the

case.

Courtroom Drama

Do Innocent Defendants Ever Confess?

Central Park Jogger Rape

Matias Reyes

The Risk of False Confessions

May confess merely to escape a bad situation. Internalization can lead innocent suspects to believe they

might be guilty of the crime. Factors that increase the risk:

Vulnerability Suspect who lacks clear memory of the event in

question False incriminating evidence

Presentation of false evidence

False Confessions(Kassin & Kiechel) Ps worked on a computer task.

Told: “DO NOT hit alt key bc computer will crash!”

Vulnerability manipulation Task (½ very slow-paced vs. ½ very fast-pace)

Incriminating evidence Evidence offered by confederate (½ yes vs. ½ no)

Dependent variables: % who signed a confession % who admitted guilt privately

False Confessions(Kassin & Kiechel)

0

1020

3040

5060

7080

90100

% w

ho

con

fess

ed

No evidence (False) evidence

Slow taskFast task

False Confessions(Kassin & Kiechel)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

% w

ho

ad

mit

ted

gu

ilt

pri

va

tely

No evidence (False) evidence

Slow taskFast task

Okay, but How Much Is a Confession Worth?(Kassin & Sukel)

Mock jurors read a murder trial1/3 no confession in trial 1/3 low-pressure confession in trial1/3 high-pressure confession in trial

Dependent variable:% of participants convicting the defendant

Okay, but How Much Is a Confession Worth?(Kassin & Sukel)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

% o

f p

art

icip

an

ts c

on

vic

tin

g

No confession Low pressure High pressure

Okay, but How Much Is a Confession Worth?(Kassin & Sukel)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

% o

f p

art

icip

an

ts c

on

vic

tin

g

No confession Low pressure High pressure

Answer: a lot!!!

Why? An Attributional Dilemma

Juries are powerfully influenced by evidence of a confession, even if the confession was coerced. FAE revisited.

A jury’s reaction can be influenced by how confession evidence is presented.

Perceptual Salience

Actor A

Actor B

Whichever actor they faced was the one the observers judged to be the Whichever actor they faced was the one the observers judged to be the more dominant member of the dyadmore dominant member of the dyad

Confessions & Perceptual Salience(Lassister & colleagues)

Taped mock confessions from 3 different angles1/3 only suspect was visible1/3 only interrogator was visible1/3 both were visible

Ps who only saw suspects saw the situation as less coercive than did others

ActualEvents

Acquisition:Info the person

perceives

Storage:Info the person

stores in memory

Retrieval: Info the person

retrieves at a later time

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

EYEWITNESSESThree chances to for errors

Eyewitness Testimony: Acquisition Refers to the witness’s perceptions at the time of the

event in question. Factors influencing acquisition:

One’s emotional state Weapon-focus effect Cross-race identification bias

Eyewitnesses: Acquisition Accuracy of Eyewitness Identification

Phase 1 Staged a theft; Ps (“eyewitnesses”) pick out “thief” from

photos Poor viewing condition – “thief” wore cap; present for 12 seconds Moderate viewing condition -- “thief” revealed more of his face;

present for 12 seconds Good viewing condition -- “thief” did not wear cap; present for 20

seconds

Phase 2 Eyewitnesses were questioned & session videotaped New Ps (“jurors”) watched videotaped session Jurors rated extent to which they believed the witness correctly identified the thief

20

40

60

80

100

Poor Moderate Good

Jurors whothoughtwitness madecorrectidentification

Witnesseswho correctlyidentifiedthief

Viewing Conditions

Per

cent

age

Accuracy of Eyewitness Identification

Eyewitness Testimony: Storage

Refers to getting the information into memory to avoid forgetting.

Memory for faces and events tends to decline over time. But, not all memories fade over time.

However, the “purity” of the memory can be influenced by postevent information.

Eyewitness Testimony: Storage (cont.)

Misinformation Effect: The tendency for false postevent information to become integrated into people’s memory of an event.

If adults can be misled by postevent information, what about children? Repetition, misinformation, and leading questions can

bias a child’s report, particularly for preschoolers.

Eyewitness: Storage Stage(Loftus & Palmer)

About how fast were the cars going when

they ____ each other?

“smashed”

“hit”

“contacted”

40.8 mph

34.0 mph30.8 mph

Eyewitness: Storage Stage(Loftus & Palmer)

About how fast were the cars going when

they ____ each other?

“smashed”

“hit”

“contacted”

40.8 mph

34.0 mph30.8 mph

32% Misremembered Broken Glass in “Smashed” Condition

Eyewitness Testimony: Retrieval Refers to pulling the information out of storage when

needed. Factors affecting identification performance:

Lineup construction Lineup instructions to the witness Format of the lineup Familiarity-induced biases

Eyewitness: Retrieval StageLineups (Malpass & Devine)

Ps saw a staged act of vandalism, after which they attended a lineupInstructions received:

½ biased (led to believe culprit was present) ½ unbiased (may or may not be present)

Culprit (½ was present vs. ½ was absent) Dependent variable:

% of false identifications

Lineup Identifications(Malpass & Devine)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

% o

f fa

lse

iden

tifi

cati

on

s

Culprit present Culprit absent

UnbiasedBiased

Child Eyewitnesses(Leichtman & Ceci)

Pre-school kids told story about clumsy man, Sam Stone, who broke things

Month later, man visited class for a day Next day, teacher points out ripped book and soiled teddy bear Conditions:

Control or Asked suggestive questions

DVs and results: 72% falsely identified perpetrator 45% said they saw him do it

Real world: Wee Care Nursery School in NJ (1988)

How lineups should be conducted

4-8 innocent “foils” Nothing should make accused person

stand out or look different – it greatly increases chance s/he will be selected

One at a time (“show-up”)

Jury Deliberation: Leadership in the Jury Room A person is more likely to be chosen as

foreperson if the person: Is of higher occupational status or has prior jury

experience. Is a male. Is the first person who speaks. Is sitting at the head of a rectangular table.

Forepersons act more as the jury’s moderator rather than its leader.

Jury Deliberation:A Leniency Bias in the Jury

Final Jury Verdicts (%)

Initial Votes Conviction AcquittalHung

6-0 (guilty-not) 100 0 0

5-1 78 7 16

4-2 44 26 30

3-3 9 51 40

2-4 4 79 17

1-5 0 93 7

0-6 0 100 0

Summary

We can understand a lot about what goes on in the courtroom by studying the psychology of the major courtroom actors.

The evidence from psychological research can be (and sometimes is) used to critique & improve aspects of the legal system.