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Purpose. The objective of this review was to give a broad overview of various biases associated with jury decision making. Specifically we review research on the impact of pretrial publicity, jury instructions, inadmissible evidence, and scientific evidence. This article elucidates various challenges jurors may face across systems around the world and remedies to counter these challenges. Results. After 50 years of scientific research on juries and juror decision making, there are still many gaps in understanding how factors such as pretrial publicity, inadmissible evidence, scientific evidence, and jury instructions influence juries. At the same time the field has developed a level of appreciation for these problems and is making strives toward understanding them. Conclusion. Based on this review some conclusions can be drawn regarding the areas of decision making reviewed. Jury instructions: Research shows that jurors have difficulties in understanding pattern instructions, at the same time we have developed some insights into ways instructions can be rewritten to increase comprehensibility. Inadmissible evidence: We are aware of the cognitive effort involved in attempting to disregard evidence but are at this point unclear on how to eliminate the associated problems. Scientific evidence: Research has illuminated the difficulties jurors have with comprehending scientific evidence. Better education of jurors and judges can help to address this issue. Pretrial publicity: The threats posed by pretrial publicity to the defendant's right to a fair trial are clear. At the same time (save change of venue) there is a need to develop cost‐effective remedies to help overcome media‐induced biases.

A psycholegal research agenda on guilty pleas is in its nascent stage. Multijurisdictional surveys of related law and policy may advance this research agenda by focusing investigators on the specifics of existing policies and motivating cross‐jurisdictional comparisons of diverse policies. We thus conducted a systematic, national survey of statutes, regulations and court rules across the United States pertaining to nine aspects of the guilty plea process, including sentencing differentials, collateral consequences and waiver of rights, which have been identified in existing legal and psycholegal research and commentary. Following a discussion of these issues, including legal concerns and existing research findings, we present the results of our systematic survey. We supplement this review with a non‐systematic sampling of appellate case law. Broadly, there was notable diversity in whether and how jurisdictions approached these issues. We discuss general and specific implications of our findings for future research, emphasizing the importance of data on actual policies and procedures to the design of studies that may contribute to evidence‐based criminal justice policy.