Ryan J. Winter

GUIDED JURY DISCRETION IN CAPITAL MURDER CASES The Role of Declarative and Procedural Knowledge

Saint Louis UniversityThis article analyzes whether state-approved jury instructions adequately guide jurydiscretion in the penalty phase of first-degree murder trials. It examines EighthAmendment jurisprudence regarding guided jury discretion, emphasizing the use of“empirical factors” to examine the quality of state-approved instructions. Psycho-logical research and testimony on the topic of the comprehensibility of juryinstructions are reviewed. Data from a recently completed simulation with 80deliberating juries showed that current instructions do not adequately convey theconcepts and processes essential to guiding penalty phase judgments. An additionalsimulation with 20 deliberating juries demonstrated that deliberation alone does notcorrect for jurors’ errors in comprehension. The article concludes with recommen-dations for policy and future research.

The Effects of Prior Workplace Behavior on Subsequent Sexual Harassment Judgments

A dual processing model of sexual harassment judgments predicted that the behavior of a complainant in a prior case would influence evaluations in an unrelated subsequent case. In the first of two experimental scenarios depicting social–sexual conduct at work, the female complainants conduct was manipulated to be aggressive, submissive, ambiguous, or neutral. Half of the participants were asked to reflect upon the first scenario after reading it and before answering responsibility questions. The other half simply reviewed the scenario and answered the questions. When the complainant acted aggressively, her behavior in the first scenario caused men who reflected on the fact pattern to find less evidence of harassment. Most interestingly, an aggressive complainant observed in the first scenario caused participants (especially women) to rate lower the likelihood that a neutral complainant in a second independent case was the victim of gender discrimination. Across cases, men found less evidence of harassment than did women.

Consumer credit card use: the roles of creditor disclosure and anticipated emotion.

In response to federal legislative reform aimed, in part, at reducing consumer bankruptcy filings, the authors conducted 2 experiments examining the role of affect in purchasing behavior. In Experiment 1, they examined consumer debtors, and in Experiment 2, they examined nondebtors. In both experiments, they investigated purchasing decisions made during a simulated online shopping trip, with some participants receiving standard disclosures of interest rates and money owed and with other participants receiving information under the new enhanced disclosure regulations. Results demonstrated support for the influence of anticipated affect in credit card use among both debtors and nondebtors and indicated that anticipated emotion may moderate the impact of the enhanced disclosure regulations.

Generic prejudice in The law: Sexual assault and homicide

This article distinguishes generic prejudice, prejudgments about classes of cases and defendants, from other forms of juror bias that undermine the impartiality principle of the Constitution. It develops an experimental method to study 2 types of generic prejudice (biases based upon specific charges, and biases based upon crime categories) and tests the role of cognitive resource theory and simple attention models in explaining when generic prejudice is most likely to be a threat to jury decisions. Results of 2 experiments using undergraduate research participants as mock jurors demonstrate that generic prejudice is more likely to be found in sexual assault cases relative to homicide cases, but that general adjudicative bias favoring the prosecution or the defense across crime categories is more likely to be found in homicide cases. There was some support for cognitive resource theory as an explanation for evaluations in sexual assault cases, and simple attention models for evaluations in homicide cases.

Questions About the Jury: What Trial Consultants Should Know About Jury Decision Making

The jury is one of the most widely studied areas within the psycholegal discipline. Dating from the time of Hugo Munsterberg in 1908, when he provided one of the first critical reflections on the jury in his book On the Witness Stand, the sheer volume of jury research produced in the USA and around the world has provided great insight into the means by which jurors make decisions. Researchers have conducted studies on such diverse topics as jurors’ use of inadmissible evidence (Cook, Arndt, & Lieberman, 2004; Kassin & Sommers, 1997; London & Nunez, 2000), the influence of complex trial testimony (Horowitz, ForsterLee, & Brolly, 1996; Worthington, Stallard, Price, & Goss, 2002), the impact of expert witnesses on jury verdicts (Cooper, Bennett, & Sukel, 1996; Kovera, McAuliff, & Hebert, 1999; Shuller, Terry, & McKimmie, 2005), and the role that victims play in swaying jury sentiments (ForsterLee, Fox, ForsterLee, & Ho, 2004; Myers & Greene, 2004), to name but a few research areas. Devine, Clayton, Dunford, Seying, and Pryce (2001) recently reviewed 206 distinguishable psycholegal studies that focused solely on deliberating mock jurors, covering areas like jury nullification, “juror-friendly” instructions, decision rules (whether jurors are allowed to reach a verdict without a group consensus), trial structure variations, and jury members’ personality traits, attitudes, and prior experiences. Although this chapter cannot possibly delve into all of the research devoted to the jury, we would like to highlight some of the useful knowledge gathered during the course of psycholegal research that has a direct bearing on trial consulting.

Chapter 13 The effects of empathy on judgments of sexual harassment complaints

Recent research suggests that individual difference variables that measure emotional reactions may be useful in understanding sexual harassment judgments. In the present study, 503 male and female working adults viewed two videos of sexual harassment cases and were asked to make judgments about the nature of the behavior. Participants also completed measures of sexism and empathy. Results indicated that Perspective Taking (PT), a component of empathy, interacted with gender to explain judgments regarding sexual harassment. Contrary to expectations, PT did not eliminate the typical gender differences found, but rather magnified them.