Chaos in the courtroom reconsidered: emotional bias and juror nullification.

A widespread presumption in the law is that giving jurors nullification instructions would result in "chaos"-jurors guided not by law but by their emotions and personal biases. We propose a model of juror nullification that posits an interaction between the nature of the trial (viz. whether the fairness of the law is at issue), nullification instructions, and emotional biases on juror decision-making.

The effects of defendant race, victim race, and juror gender on evidence processing in a murder trial.

The effects of defendant race, victim race, and juror gender on sentencing and information processing were examined within the context of a murder trial. A sample consisting of 96, jury eligible White Australians read one of four versions of a real trial transcript, in which the race of a male defendant and female victim were varied. The participants imposed the severest sentences on the Indigenous (Black) defendant.

The effects of jury size, evidence complexity, and note taking on jury process and performance in a civil trial.

A total of 567 jury-eligible men and women who were assigned to 6- or 12-person juries saw a videotaped civil trial that contained either I or 4 plaintiffs. Half the juries took notes, whereas the remainder did not. Six-person juries that did not take notes awarded multiple plaintiffs the highest amounts of compensation.