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The Jury Under Fire: Myth, Controversy, and Reform

The Jury Under Fire: Myth, Controversy, and Reform

Author: Brian H. Bornstein; Edie Greene
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780190201340
Published In: March 2017
Format: Paperback
Jurisdiction: U.S. ? Disclaimer:
Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only

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Description
Contents

Details

Although the jury is often referred to as one of the bulwarks of the American justice system, it regularly comes under attack. Recent changes to trial procedures, such as reducing jury size, allowing non-unanimous verdicts, and rewriting jury instructions in plain English, were designed to promote greater efficiency and adherence to the law. Other changes, such as capping damages and replacing jurors with judges as arbiters in complex trials, seem designed to restrict the role of laypeople in trial outcomes. Whether these innovations are implemented to facilitate the administration of justice or due to the belief that juries have excessive power and make irrational decisions, they raise a host of questions about their effects on juries' judgments and about justice. Policymakers sometimes make incorrect assumptions about jury behavior, with the result that some reform efforts have had surprising and unintended consequences.

The Jury Under Fire reviews a number of controversial beliefs about juries as well as the implications of these views for jury reform. It reviews up-to-date research on both criminal and civil juries that uses a variety of research methodologies: simulations, archival analyses, field studies, and juror interviews. Each chapter focuses on a mistaken assumption or myth about jurors or juries, critiques these myths, and then uses social science research findings to suggest appropriate reforms. Chapters discuss the experience of serving as a juror; jury selection and jury size; and the impact of evidence from eyewitnesses, experts, confessions, and juvenile offenders.

The book also covers the process of deciding damages and punishment and the role of emotions in jurors' decision making, and it compares jurors' and judges' decisions. Finally, it reviews a broad range of efforts to reform the jury, including the most promising reforms that have a solid backing in research. Featuring highly visible trials to illustrate key points, The Jury Under Fire will interest researchers in psychology and the law, practicing attorneys, and policymakers, as well as students and trainees in these areas

Series Foreword

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. Introduction

Chapter 2. Avoid Jury Duty at All Costs

Chapter 3. Jury Selection Can Effectively Identify Biased Jurors

Chapter 4.

6 = 12 and They Don't All Have to Agree

Chapter 5. Jurors Can Distinguish Accurate from Inaccurate Eyewitnesses

Chapter 6. Jurors Can Distinguish True from False Confessions

Chapter 7. Jurors Overvalue Expert Testimony

Chapter 8. Jurors Treat Juvenile Defendants Fairly

Chapter 9. Compensatory Damage Awards Are Excessive and Unpredictable