Intro:
This morning I received a letter from ABC Law Firm requesting my services to provide professional help through the field of Social Psychology. ABC Law Firm has recently agreed to defend a 38-year old, African-American male, who’s currently employed by Super Stores. This gentleman has recently been given a promotion to national director of human resources. He is being sued by a 30-year old, Middle Eastern woman, who claims she was overlooked for the promotion to an administrative position due to her gender and ethnicity. I am here to present effective information though social psychological research, findings, and methods in order to obtain a “not guilty” verdict.
Factors in the case:
There will be three primary issues to analyze and prepare for, the first of which is the preliminary examination of potential jurors (sometimes mistakenly referred to as jury selection) (Sales & Snuggs 1978). While the process of selecting jurors takes place, many thought-provoking questions arise. Are the jurors influenced by the appearance of the defendants? Does the defendant’s social class have an effect on the jurors? How persuadable are the jurors? Does the judge’s assessment determine the jurors end-decision? Are most jury’s made of the defendant’s peers? Will the defendant’s race, ethnicity, or religion lead to prejudice? How does a jury member of corresponding race alter one’s decision making? Does physical attractiveness have some sway in the juror’s view of the defendant? (Baron & Branscombe, 2012) These are questions we want to review when interviewing potential jurors during the case for ABC Law Firm.
The second factor is jury bias. Trail by jury is pledged as an inalienable right ensured to each individual, as protected by th...
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Facial attractiveness: evolutionary based research Anthony C. Little
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Sex Differences in Judgments of Physical Attractiveness: A Social Relations Analysis
Pers Soc Psychol Bull March 1, 2003 29: 325-335 David K. Marcus and Rowland S. Miller 2003
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Suggs, D., & Sales, B. D. (1978). The art and science of conducting the voir dire. Professional Psychology, 9(3), 367-388.
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Spaeth, J.M., (2003) Recognizing and Exposing Juror Bias in Voir Dire. American Psychological Association, 1-8.
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This chapter is mainly devoted to the jury selection process and how it is taken care
Over 80 million Americans alive today have been called to jury duty at some point in their lives (Henley 5). Out of these 80 million individuals, roughly 30% (or 24 million) have been eliminated from the jury selection process due to the use of peremptory challenges (5). According to Black’s Law Dictionary, a peremptory challenge is a challenge that “need not be supported by any reason.” Although these challenges are commonplace in today’s courts, several Supreme Court cases have questioned the constitutionality of their place in the legal system. This paper will explore the history of peremptory challenges, theories behind them, a few pertinent cases, and reform progress.
Despite the efforts of lawyers and judges to eliminate racial discrimination in the courts, does racial bias play a part in today’s jury selection? Positive steps have been taken in past court cases to ensure fair and unbiased juries. Unfortunately, a popular strategy among lawyers is to incorporate racial bias without directing attention to their actions. They are taught to look for the unseen and to notice the unnoticed. The Supreme Court in its precedent setting decision on the case of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), is the first step to limiting racial discrimination in the court room. The process of selecting jurors begins with prospective jurors being brought into the courtroom, then separating them into smaller groups to be seated in the jury box. The judge and or attorneys ask questions with intent to determine if any juror is biased or cannot deal with the issues fairly. The question process is referred to as voir dire, a French word meaning, “to see to speak”. During voir dire, attorneys have the right to excuse a juror in peremptory challenges. Peremptory challenges are based on the potential juror admitting bias, acquaintanceship with one of the parties, personal knowledge of the facts, or the attorney believing he/she might not be impartial. In the case of Batson v. Kentucky, James Batson, a black man, was indicted for second-degree burglary and receipt of stolen goods. During the selection of the jury the prosecutor used his peremptory challenges to strike out all of the four black potential jurors, leaving an all white jury. Batson’s attorney moved to discharge the venire, the list from which jurors may be selected, on the grounds that the prosecutor’s peremptory challenges violated his client’s Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to have a jury derived from a “cross-section of the community”(People v. Wheeler, 583 P.3d 748 [Calif. 1978]). The circuit court ruled in favor of the prosecutor and convicted Batson on both counts. This case went through the courts and finalized in the U.S. Supreme Court.
As one of the seven jury deliberations documented and recorded in the ABC News television series In the Jury Room the discussions of the jurors were able to be seen throughout the United States. A transcript was also created by ABC News for the public as well. The emotions and interactions of the jurors were now capable of being portrayed to anyone interested in the interworkings of jury deliberations. The first task,...
... of the juror’s and their sentencing or decision making in our study but further research could be carried out solely into how political attitude could also influence the jury-decision making.
Kaplan, H. I., Sadock, B. J., & Grebb, J. A. (1994). Synopsis of psychiatry: behavioral sciences,
At trial, your life is in the palms of strangers who decide your fate to walk free or be sentenced and charged with a crime. Juries and judges are the main components of trials and differ at both the state and federal level. A respectable citizen selected for jury duty can determine whether the evidence presented was doubtfully valid enough to convict someone without full knowledge of the criminal justice system or the elements of a trial. In this paper, juries and their powers will be analyzed, relevant cases pertaining to jury nullification will be expanded and evaluated, the media’s part on juries discretion, and finally the instructions judges give or may not include for juries in the court. Introduction Juries are a vital object to the legal system and are prioritized as the most democratic element in our society, aside from voting, in our society today.
Bibliography 3rd edition Psychology (Bernstein-Stewart, Roy, Srull, & Wickens) Houghton Mifflin Company Boston, Massachusetts 1994
Juror #10, a garage owner, segregates and divides the world stereotypically into ‘us’ and ‘them.’ ‘Us’ being people living around the rich or middle-class areas, and ‘them’ being people of a different race, or possessing a contrasting skin color, born and raised in the slums (poorer parts of town). It is because of this that he has a bias against the young man on trial, for the young man was born in the slums and was victim to domestic violence since the age of 5. Also, the boy is of a Hispanic descent and is of a different race than this juror, making him fall under the juror’s discriminatory description of a criminal. This is proven on when juror #10 rants: “They don’t need any real big reason to kill someone, either. You know, they get drunk, and bang, someone’s lying in the gutter… most of them, it’s like they have no feelings (59).
Davis, S. F., & Palladino, J. J. (2003). Psychology. (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Stevenson, D 2012, The function of uncertainty within jury systems, George Mason Law Review, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 513-548, viewed 6 May 2014, .
The book “12 Angry Men” by Reginald Rose is a book about twelve jurors who are trying to come to a unanimous decision about their case. One man stands alone while the others vote guilty without giving it a second thought. Throughout the book this man, the eighth juror, tries to provide a fair trial to the defendant by reviewing all the evidence. After reassessing all the evidence presented, it becomes clear that most of the men were swayed by each of their own personal experiences and prejudices. Not only was it a factor in their final decisions but it was the most influential variable when the arbitration for the defendant was finally decided.
“No matter where you run into it, prejudice obscures the trues” (page 66). Prejudice can be a dangerous thing, especially when it comes to adjusting somebody’s life. At that time in America a jury consists of twelve men can determine the life or death of one person by giving a unanimous verdict. A typical reflection of this reality is an influential drama “Twelve Anger Men”. Reginald Rose wrote this drama inspired by his experience of being a juror on a manslaughter case to reveal a common social phenomenon of prejudice. To stress the main idea that, Rose presents the key points that biased individuals are less rational or blinding themselves with an unfair judgement about one’s guilt. Moreover, she conveys the facts that stereotype produces an effect on one’s statement. Furthermore, prejudice constantly affect other jurors’ opinion, intentionally or unintentionally. With Rose’s vivid description and clear contrast between each juror, he emphasizes the existence of prejudice and further to spread an idea that prejudice influence the outcome of the trial.
Edited by Raymond J. Corsini. Encyclopedia of Psychology, Second Edition, Volume 3. New York: John Wiley and Sons Inc.