As media coverage becomes more extensive and accessible, it is likely to become more difficult to find jurors who have not been exposed to relevant pretrial publicity. Courts' assessments of the likelihood that pretrial publicity has resulted in prejudice against a defendant and of jurors' ability to disregard any prejudice are often based on judicial common sense and often reflect a misappraisal or misunderstanding of the capabilities and weaknesses of human inference and decision making. Therefore, social science evidence concerning pretrial publicity and its effects is crucial. Despite existing research, which consistently demonstrates that pretrial publicity can influence people's attitudes about a publicized case, information regarding the mediational processes by which pretrial publicity exerts its effects is still needed. To this end, this article proposes a multimethod research approach by which mediational mechanisms can be assessed. Issues concerning basic research as well as real-world applications are discussed.Article III of the U.S. Constitution provides that criminal trials shall be held in the state where such crimes have been committed. The Sixth Amendment of the Constitution provides as follows:"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed."The Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution requires fundamental fairness in the prosecution of federal crimes. The right to an impartial jury in the Sixth Amendment and the fundamental fairness requirement of the Due Process Clause override the trial provisions in both Article III and the Sixth Amendment in extraordinary cases. That is the foundation for Fed. R. Crim. P. 21 (a), which provides for a change of venue to protect from prejudice. The rule reads as follows:"The court upon motion of the defendant shall transfer the proceeding as to that defendant to another district whether or not such district is specified in the defendant's motion if the court is satisfied that there exists in the district where the prosecution is pending so great a prejudice against the defendant that the defendant cannot obtain a fair and impartial trial at any place fixed by law for holding court in that district." Upon all of the evidence presented, this court finds and concludes that there is so great a prejudice against these two defendants in the State of Oklahoma that they cannot obtain a fair and impartial trial at any place fixed by law for holding court in that state. The court also finds and concludes that an appropriate alternative venue is in the District of Colorado.
Responding to the perception that civil damage awards are out of control, courts and legislatures have pursued tort reform efforts largely aimed at reigning in damage awards by juries. One proposed method for reigning in civil juries is to limit, or cap, the amount that can be awarded for punitive damages. Despite significant controversy over damage awards and the civil litigation system, there has been little research focusing on the process by which juries determine damages. In particular, there is a paucity of research on the possible effects of placing caps on punitive damages. The present research examines punitive damage caps and reveals an anchoring effect of the caps on both compensatory and punitive damages. A second experiment replicates this effect and examines the moderating effect of bifurcating the compensatory and punitive damage decisions.Multimillion dollar punitive damage verdicts by juries have caused some to challenge the appropriateness of punitive damages as they are now awarded. A handful of cases are often cited as evidence that civil juries are "out of control." One such case is that of Stella Liebeck, in which Ms. Liebeck sued McDonald's after she was burned by hot coffee. A jury awarded Ms. Liebeck $160,000 in compensatory damages and $2.7 million in punitive damages (Leibeck v. McDonald's Corp., 1994). Compensatory damage awards are awarded in a civil case to compensate the plaintiff for the harm suffered (including medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering).
Jurors have accumulated prior knowledge of crime categories that influences their verdict choices (V. L. Smith, 1991Smith, , 1993. The present research investigates whether this prior knowledge also influences the fact-finding process by operating as an expectancy for information processing. Consistent with the expectancy hypothesis, Study 1 demonstrated that people are more susceptible to misleading information that is perceived to be typical of the crime in question than misleading information that is atypical. Studies 2 and 3 revealed that people's intrusion errors also contain more typical than atypical information. These results indicate that people's prior knowledge of crime categories does indeed serve as an expectancy for fact-finding. Thus, prior knowledge plays a broader role than previously appreciated. The implications of this breadth are discussed.A juror's duty is to make sense of the facts presented at trial, to listen to the judge's instructions on the law, and then to integrate facts and law into a legally appropriate verdict. As fact-finders, jurors are encouraged to evaluate the evidence and testimony in light of their own observations and life experiences; they are supposed to bring their common sense notions of the world to bear on the fact-finding process. In contrast, jurors' use of the law is highly constrained. They are told that they must follow the law as stated in the judge's instructions) Jurors are assumed either to have no prior knowledge of the law or to set that prior knowledge aside when they hear the judge's instructions.Recent research has revealed that jurors are not blank slates with regard to the law; they have constructed naive representations of crime categories, such as burglary, assault, and kidnapping. In a series of studies, V. L. Smith (1991) found that people were readily able to list features that they believed characterize various 1Northwestern University. 2Christina Studebaker is now at the Center for Children, Families, and the Law, 121 S. 13th St., Suite 302, EO. Box 880227, Lincoln, NE 68588-0227. w Some states instruct jurors that they may nullify the la and vote not guilty if they believe that a guilty verdict would be unjust under the circumstances (Hans & Vidmar, 1986). This instruction is not widely used, and is a rare exception to the expectation that jurors will follow the law as stated by the judge.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.