Robert J. Robinson

What Does "Unwilling" to Impose the Death Penalty Mean Anyway? Another Look at Excludable Jurors

The debate regarding the death qualification of juries usually concerns (a) whether death-qualified jurors have different attitudes and values to excludable jurors, or (b) whether death-qualified juries are more prone to convict. A pivotal question is whether excludable subjects in fact willever impose the death penalty. Subjects were presented with five grisly murder vignettes. Only 40% of excludable subjects refused to consider the death penalty in all of the cases, with the remaining 60% indicating they would consider the death penalty in one or more of the cases. It is argued that the majority of individuals currently being excluded from capital trial juries based on their reservations about the death penalty actually would impose the death penalty for serious enough offenses and that they should therefore be allowed to serve on such juries.

Notetaking Can Aid Juror Recall

Mock jurors were permitted to take notes during a trial simulation and to have those notes available during an individualized test of recall. Compared to non-notetakers, those who took notes showed superior recall and were more involved in the trial proceedings. The quantity of notes taken, their accuracy, and their organization all correlated positively with accuracy of recall.

Morally Questionable Tactics: Negotiations between District Attorneys and Public Defenders

A questionnaire study about bargaining tactics was conducted among 163 public defenders (PDs) and district attorneys (DAs) in the criminal justice system. The authors hypothesized that PDs (defensive roles) would perceive questionable tactics to be more appropriate than would DAs (offensive roles), that PDs and DAs would elevate their approval of questionable tactics for counteraggression purposes, and that PDs would elevate their approval for counteraggression to a greater extent than would DAs. Results supported these hypotheses. The authors also examined the basis of the status quo bias, because previous status quo bias studies always confounded power with defensive role. After testing four status quo bias hypotheses, results suggested that, contrary to previous explanations, a defender-challenger framework sometimes provides a better account of the status quo bias than does a power framework.