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The Impacts of Evidence and Extralegal Factors in Jurors' Decisions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2024

Barbara F. Reskin  and
Christy A. Visher
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Abstract

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This study uses data from courtroom observations and posttrial interviews with jurors who served in thirty-eight actual sexual assault trials. It addresses three issues: (1) the effects of several measures of evidence on jurors' judgments of a defendant's guilt, (2) the relative merits of jurors' recollections of the evidence and measures of evidence coded at trial by trained observers, and (3) whether the effects of jurors' attitudes toward crime and their sentiments toward victims and defendants depend on the strength of the evidence, as Kalven and Zeisel (1966) contended. We find that both trial- and juror-level measures of evidence adequately capture the effects of evidence, and that neither measure is inherently preferable. Also, while jurors were influenced by extralegal factors, these effects were largely limited to weak cases in which the state presented little hard evidence, which is consistent with Kalven and Zeisel's “liberation hypothesis.”

Type
Research Note
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , 1986 , pp. 423 - 438
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 The Law and Society Association

Footnotes

This research was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grant No. R01 MH29727, awarded through the National Center for the Prevention and Control of Rape. We gratefully acknowledge the helpful suggestions of Gary LaFree, Polly Phipps, David Rauma, two anonymous reviewers, and the current and past editors of the Law & Society Review. We are indebted to Stephanie Sanford for observing trials and helping to prepare the data for analysis, to Linda Copenhaver for arranging the juror interviews, to the Marion County Criminal Courts and Prosecutor's Office for their cooperation, and to the jurors for generously participating in this study. Our greatest debt is to Marie Matthews, who was instrumental in all phases of study design and data collection.

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