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. Mock jurors considered a trial online which varied the presence a nullification instructions, whether the trial raised issues of the law's fairness (murder for profit vs. euthanasia), and emotionally biasing information (that affected jurors' liking for the victim). Only when jurors were in receipt of nullification instructions in a nullification-relevant trial were they sensitive to emotionally biasing information. Emotional biases did not affect evidence processing but did affect emotional reactions and verdicts, providing the strongest support to date for the chaos theory.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
|---|---|
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10979-006-9028-x | DOI Listing |
Publication Analysis
Top Keywords
Similar Publications
Juror Decision Making and Euthanasia: Exploring the Role of Jury Nullification, Manner of Death, and Defendant-Decedent Relationship.
Psychol Rep
December 2023
Department of Psychology, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, USA.
In cases of euthanasia, determinations of guilt may be influenced by legal and extra-legal factors. This study explores the role that nullification instructions play in juror decision making. A defendant may be viewed as less culpable if the act was done out of mercy and jury nullification may occur as a result.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFocusing on Mouth Movement to Improve Genuine Smile Recognition.
Front Psychol
July 2020
College of Education, Wenzhou University, Wenzhou, China.
Smiles are the most commonly and frequently used facial expressions by human beings. Some scholars claimed that the low accuracy in recognizing genuine smiles is explained by the perceptual-attentional hypothesis, meaning that observers either did not pay attention to responsible cues or were unable to recognize these cues (usually the Duchenne marker or AU6 displaying as contraction of muscles in eye regions). We investigated whether training (instructing participants to pay attention either to the Duchenne mark or to mouth movement) might help improve the recognition of genuine smiles, including accuracy and confidence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhen jurors' moral judgments result in jury nullification: moral outrage at the law as a mediator of euthanasia attitudes on verdicts.
Psychiatr Psychol Law
May 2020
Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, USA.
In a mock-trial study, jurors read evidence about a doctor who had killed a terminally ill patient at the patient's request. We tested whether instructing jurors about jury nullification (ie jurors' power to return a not-guilty verdict even when legal guilt is beyond doubt, often because the law would result in unjust convictions) would exacerbate the effect of pre-trial euthanasia attitudes on their verdicts - compared to standard, pattern jury instructions. We also hypothesized that anti-euthanasia pre-trial attitudes would result in moral outrage at the defendant and higher conviction rates, but pro-euthanasia attitudes would prompt feelings of moral outrage at the law and lower conviction rates.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWomen athletes' mental rotation under stereotypic threat.
Percept Mot Skills
August 2008
Catawba College, USA.
This experiment examined whether nullifying a stereotypic threat about sex-related abilities in mental rotation in women athletes increased facility with rotations. Women athletes and nonathletes (N = 64) were told that they would be performing mental rotation presumed to create an implicit stereotypic threat. Then 32 participants learned that the mental rotation tasks required the same abilities as those mastered by athletes, presumed to nullify the stereotypic threat.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChaos in the courtroom reconsidered: emotional bias and juror nullification.
Law Hum Behav
April 2006
Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon 97331-4501, USA.
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.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWant AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?
Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!