Deliberation Quality: A Preliminary Examination in Criminal Juries

Abstract

Large‐scale studies of the deliberation process in actual juries have been surprisingly rare, and relatively little attention has been devoted to how well juries deliberate. This study identified a set of process‐related criteria relevant to the quality of criminal jury deliberations and examined empirical relationships between indicators of these criteria and jury verdicts. Data were obtained via posttrial surveys from jurors and legal professionals associated with 179 criminal jury trials in Indiana. The quality of deliberations varied across the process criteria, with juries reportedly doing fairly well in terms of understanding their instructions and reviewing the evidence, but not as well with regard to systematically gathering input from their members, adopting an evidence‐driven deliberation style, and avoiding factionalism. Several deliberation variables were also strongly related to jury verdicts, particularly the foreperson's initial verdict stance and the emergence of an identifiable pro‐acquittal faction leader. Discussion of reasonable doubt and thoroughness of evidence review also tended to be negatively correlated with conviction even when strength of evidence was controlled. This study calls attention to the importance of deliberation quality.

Is the leniency asymmetry really dead? Misinterpreting asymmetry effects in criminal jury deliberation

“…Unfortunately, first-ballot undecided or abstain votes were not coded as such for Devine et al (2004) and the raw data were no longer available (D. Devine, personal communications, 15 May 2009 and8 July 2009). However, the coding for the Devine et al (2007) data did retain this information. Additionally, Prof. R. Dillehay supplied the data for the 50 focal juries examined in Sandys and Dillehay (1995).…”

“…In a pair of subsequent studies (Devine et al, 2004;Devine, Buddenbaum, Houp, Studebaker, & Stolle, 2007), Devine and his colleagues responded to their earlier call for more data on this question. Devine et al (2004) surveyed criminal trial jurors immediately after their trials.…”

“…Fortunately, there is potentially a way to empirically resolve these dueling coding assumptions--one might recode these data under different coding assumptions to see if it would alter the degree of leniency vs. severity asymmetry. We first contacted Prof. D. Devine and he sent us the data files for both Devine et al (2004) and Devine et al (2007). Unfortunately, first-ballot undecided or abstain votes were not coded as such for Devine et al (2004) and the raw data were no longer available (D. Devine, personal communications, 15 May 2009 and8 July 2009).…”

“…Thus, Devine et al (2004Devine et al ( , 2007 functionally equated either a vote of "undecided" at the first ballot or an abstention from that first ballot as a preference for a Not Guilty vote at the start of deliberation. Inspection of Sandys and Dillehay's (1995) and Kalven and Zeisel's (1966) methods indicates that they made the same coding assumption as Devine et al (2004Devine et al ( , 2007 What is the net effect of this assumption? Let's consider an example.…”

Cross-Sectional Challenges: Gender, Race, and Six-Person Juries

“…258 Forepersons, in turn, are highly influential in shaping deliberations 259 and outcomes. 260 Even among the rest of the jurors, research suggests that demographic characteristics predict a member's influence on others' opinions. Men and those of higher socio-economic status are both perceived to be more influential to others and actually do participate more in deliberations.…”