Empirical Jury Studies and Evidential Reasoning

Condorcet’s jury theorem provides a theoretical foundation for why we should put our faith in the decisions of collectives. However, it assumes that individuals vote truthfully regardless of whether they are voting in isolation or in a group setting. We present a two-stage Bayesian game in which members of the jury share a common goal of delivering justice, but may disagree over the defendant’s guilt. The jurors are rational expected utility maximisers who draw two independent signals, conveying their verdict preference and verdict certainty, and must then optimally select whether to vote truthfully or falsify their preferences in the initial vote taken by the jury. The consequences of non-unanimity in the initial vote are the jury deliberations, where jurors compete in a tournament to convince members of the opposing preference faction to vote acquiesce. We derive that the probability that all jurors vote truthfully is greater under a secret ballot in ambiguous trials that produce similarly sized preference factions, and is greater under a public vote in unambiguous cases with a clear majority faction in favour of either conviction or acquittal. We then conduct causal 2SLS estimation and empirically verify that the secret ballot increases truthful voting in ambiguous trials by 8.4%, but detect no significant effect in unambiguous trials. We overcome endogeneity concerns by instrumenting the jury’s choice over the secrecy of the initial vote with previous juror experience and whether the judge gifted the jury with notebooks for the trial, and our 2SLS estimates are robust to estimation by a two-step GMM procedure. We conclude by recommending that judges mandate the use of a secret ballot, in order to mitigate the extensive and persist societal costs associated with lying on juries.

This article examines how practitioners in the UK define ‘child trafficking’. It is based on research by Pearce, Hynes and Bovarnick (2009), which suggests that there are currently different definitions of child trafficking being worked with in UK practice. By analysing current working definitions around
‘child trafficking’ the article illustrates that much of how trafficked children and young people are identified and how their needs are responded to depends on how practitioners define a trafficked child. As such, the article contributes to an existing body of knowledge around trafficking by illustrating
that the ways in which ‘trafficking’ is constituted discursively in policy and practice affect outcomes for trafficked children.

The concept of legitimacy is examined (I) through a reading of Habermas’s work on communicative action, and through a reading of the opening chapters of Between Facts and Norms. The claim that legal juries function in a manner similar to a ‘parliament’ is rejected in favour of a claim that they exercise a decentred ‘particle’ of popular sovereignty. (II) An analysis of the jury’s lifeworld origins is undertaken and, (III) the essay then considers the democratic function of the operation of ‘jury equity’ whereby juries may produce ‘perverse’ decisions, or as described in the USA – jury ‘nullification’ whereby juries bring in verdicts that go against overwhelming evidence.

This is an experimental text with three voices. The first one is an autoethnographic study of being called on jury service at the Old Bailey, London. The second is a theoretical voice, analysing the theory of the lawscape as I have developed it in my writings, in combination with issues about atmospherics, enclosures, control of bodies and spaces, and temporalities of law. The third voice operates as commentary on the other two and the whole chapter as such, offering an antilogos to the traditional understanding of essay writing, especially for law students but also for academics. This last voice suggests the disruption of the flow of textuality in order for materiality to flood in.

The historical development of the Soviet-Russian Criminal Justice System shows that there are ongoing negative attitudes towards acquittals amongst law enforcement agencies in Russia. Each period of acquittal rate rise is scrupulously monitored and controlled. Today, an acquittals spike in modern Russia is happening by virtue of Jury Reform, which has broadened the jury trial to the level of District Courts. By drawing on qualitative data from the observation of trials by jury, this paper explores the set of strategies and tactics, which the Criminal Justice System deploys to increase chances of reaching a guilty verdict by jury. The most frequently used strategies include manipulation in communication, trial "recursion", trial acceleration, and system's learning. The theoretical basis of research acknowledges N. Luhmann's theory of autopoietic social systems and the Crime Control Model of H. Packer.

Skoblik, K. V. (2022) “Coping with the undesired consequences of jury reform: How does the Russian criminal justice system control an acquittals spike over the reform 2018-2020?”, Oñati Socio-Legal Series. Available at: https://opo.iisj.net/index.php/osls/article/view/1355 (Accessed: 30 March 2022).

La participación ciudadana en la Justicia Penal en Argentina como medio para legitimar la justicia.
Una de las instituciones más cuestionada en Argentina, luego de la crisis política, social y económica del año 2001, fue la justicia. Ello se vio reflejado en los niveles de desconfianza los cuales llegaron al 90,40 % en el 2002.El gobierno de transición de la época,  se concentró en estabilizar la economía, dejando los cambios estructurales pendientes, a fin que los asuma quien resultara victorioso en las elecciones, que ya habían sido convocadas. Con las elecciones presidenciales de abril de 2003,  y superados los pronósticos de que el electo presidente gobernaría con escasa legitimidad, Néstor Kirchner emprende varias reformas entre ellas la judicial, la cual inicia con los cambios en la constitución de la Corte Suprema de la Justicia de la Nación y continúa con la presentación del Plan Estratégico de Justicia y Seguridad 2004/2007, que en el capítulo III, “Participación Cívica y Control Ciudadano”, contemplaba al Juicio con Jurados cuya finalidad era “acercar a la población una administración de Justicia que aquella percibe como lejana, obscura e ineficiente”. Si bien el plan estratégico fue un fracaso, la idea del juicio con jurados, se extendió en todo el país, siendo la pionera en su implementación la provincia de Córdoba, la única con el sistema acusatorio pleno vigente, y que ya tenía alguna experiencia, aunque escasa, con jurados escabinos. Ahora bien, el contexto de reforma, en Córdoba,  lejos de acercarse a la a hipótesis de que la institución del jurado, en diferentes civilizaciones, ha sido el instrumento más efectivo para limitar los poderes y jurisdicción del gobierno, se dio en medio de un reclamo popular por el aumento de castigo penal. Luego de 10 años de implementación en Córdoba,  otras provincias como Buenos Aires y Neuquén, modificaron su legislación procesal, e implementaron el juicio con jurados. Lo curioso, fue que la idea de la participación ciudadana en la justicia penal, fue usado en los discursos políticos de conservadores, como de corrientes de izquierda. El presente trabajo explorará las distintas razones esgrimidas en los proyectos de ley presentados con miras a instaurar el Sistema de Juicio por Jurados a nivel nacional, de forma tal de intentar precisar cuáles son los objetivos políticos que se espera alcanzar con la reforma, y cotejarlos, con los datos resultantes de la experiencia cordobesa, a mas de diez años de su implementación, procurando establecer cuán realizable es la expectativa creada respecto de la participación lega en la justicia penal.

Nowadays knowledge and truth are under attack, and, as a consequence, we are losing the notion of evidence as “obvious”. George Orwell considered that one of the principal duties of today’s world is to recover what is obvious. In these days, when the manipulation of language for political ends grows strongly, when «war is peace», «freedom is slavery», «ignorance is strength», we must rediscover the basic principles of our reason. Understanding how human knowledge functions has always been complex. However, it is clear that knowledge is constructed in layers, atop the floor of evidence.
But evidence is not an exclusive subject in philosophy; it also interests the judge, the lawyer and those who continually raise its argument about the pillar of what is evident: Should what is evident be proven when everyone attacks it? And, more difficult still: How to test that the obvious is evident, when it suffers from a general threat?
Nowadays we have lost the sense of what is real and what is evident. It becomes imperious to know if there is any kind of proof which defines what things are evident. In order to find it we will proceed in the following manner: first we will review how evidence has been understood in classic philosophy, besides seeing some current relevant contributions (Chapter II); then we will get into it in a systematic method of understanding what is evident, from its types, characteristics and functions (Chapter III), with this background to be able to postulate a test about whether something is evident, confirming if it meets the characteristics of what is evident.

Web Service Computing is a recent evolution in Distributed Computing series and it is an emerging and fast growing paradigm in the present scenario. Web Service Computing is a diversified discipline suite that related to the technologies of Business Process Integration and Management, Grid / Utility / Cloud Computing paradigms, autonomic computing, as well as the business and scientific applications. It applies the theories of Science and Technology for bridging the gap between Business Services and IT Services. Service oriented computing addresses how to enable the technology to help people to perform business processes more efficiently and effectively, ultimately resulting in creating WIN-WIN strategy between the business organizations and end users.  The greatest significance of the web services is their interoperability, which allows businesses to dynamically publish, discover, and aggregate a range of Web services through the Internet to more easily create innovative products, business processes and value chains both from organization and end user points of views. Due to these, this cross discipline attracts the variety of researchers from various disciplines to conduct the versatile research and experiments in this area.

Studies on juries have often relied entirely on self-reported data (surveys) or a handful of in-depth interviews. In either case, the skeptic can doubt the truth claims about the jury based on this evidence. After all, many addicted smokers assert that they can “quit tomorrow.” Are they any less reliable than others who self-report? To be fair, surveys and interviews have their place as legitimate research tools, but we did not feel they were definitive enough to decide our real money wager. The test we proposed to resolve our wager about the civic impact of jury deliberation avoids common measurement problems by linking official jury records with the actual democratic act of voting as recorded by the county’s registrar of voters. This is not the best way to understand the robust and varied nature of civic engagement, but it can demonstrate whether an effect exists under the most rigorous of testing conditions. Although subject to human error, the public records we gather do not depend on fragile human memory or anyone’s desire to impress an interviewer. Given that the researchers and recording clerks only meet long after the court and voting documents have been produced, bias in the recording of the data is implausible. In addition, this approach can yield as close to a perfect response rate as the archives will allow, with little chance that jurors’ experience at the courtroom could influence the odds of their appearing in our final dataset. Because jury service is mandatory, it also brings into our study many people who embark on their public service journey at the county courthouse only reluctantly. Finally, our approach allows us to collect data spanning a period of years, such that we can measure the impact of jury service on voting in elections held months or even years after the study participants completed their service.

ABSTRACT.  Introduction. In the last five years, info-graphics have been widely accepted in cases judged by popular tribunals. Experts appreciate the communicative potential of the forensic info-graphic as opposed to traditional technical police inspection, but nobody has verified the emotional impact this could have on the jury.
We analysed if a forensic info-graphic will have a greater affective valence (pleasant to unpleasant) and emotional arousal (calm-excited) then written text, and depend of expressive channels incorporated into the forensic info-graphic reconstruction.
Materials and method. The samples used for this study were four separate groups each consisting of 40 people. To design the survey we used a Polldaddy platform. In the first experiment, the first sample had to read the description of a murder, the second sample had to listen to an audio describing the same crime, the third sample had to view an info-graphic without audio and the fourth sample had to see the same info-graphic with audio.
Next they had to answer two questions about the dimension of affective valence and emotional arousal measured with Self- Assessment Manikin (SAM) devised by Lang (1980): 1 (very happy) to 9 (very sad) for the valence, and 1 (very active) to 9 (very calm) for the arousal.
Results.  Age has a statistically significant influence on arousal. I mean the older punctuation we found low arousal scores corresponding to more active range. Therefore, the older the person, the more they are stimulated.
The level of study has significant influence with arousal; it means that a higher level of study we found a lower score in arousal corresponding to more active range.
Greater levels of study are more emotionally activated.
The variable of genre has a significant influence on valence and arousal. We can say that men are less activated than women. In the valence score women will have higher values than men in negative valence.

RESUMEN. Introducción. Durante estos cinco años, la infografía ha tenido una gran aceptación en aquellos casos juzgados por tribunales populares. Todos los expertos conocen el potencial comunicativo de la infografía forense respecto a los textos escritos de las Actas de Inspección ocular técnico policial; pero nadie ha verificado el impacto emotivo que puede tener por parte del jurado. Se analizó si la infografía forense tendrá una valencia afectiva (placer - desagradable) y activación emocional (activado – calmado) mayor que el texto escrito, y cuanto en función de los canales expresivos incorporados al infografía. Materiales y procedimiento. Las muestras utilizadas para este estudio fueron cuatros grupos separados cada uno formado por 40 personas. Para poder efectuar la encuesta se ha utilizado la plataforma Polldaddy. En el primer experimento la primera muestra tenia que leer la descripción de un caso de asesinato, la segunda muestra tenia que escuchar un audio que describía el mismo hecho delictivo, la tercera muestra tenia que ver una infografía sin audio y la cuarta muestra tenían que ver la misma infografía con audio y sonidos.
Sucesivamente tenían que contestar dos preguntas sobre la valencia afectiva y la activación emocional medida atreves la Escala Self- Assessment Manikin Affective (SAM) desarrollada por Lang (1980): 1 (muy feliz) a 9 (muy triste) para la valencia, y de 1 (muy activado) a 9 (muy calmado) para la activación. Resultados. La edad tiene una influencia estadísticamente significativa sobre la activación. Es decir a mayor edad encontramos puntuaciones menores de activación que corresponde al range mas activado. A mayor edad mas la persona se encuentra activada. El nivel de estudio tiene una influencia significativa con la activación, significa que a mayor nivel de estudio encontramos una menor puntuación en activación que corresponde al range mas activado. A mayor nivel de estudio se encuentran mas activados emocionalmente. La variable del genero tiene una influencia significativa sobre valencia y activación. Con esto podemos decir que los hombres se sienten menos activados que las mujeres que tienen mas activación. Y por lo que es la valencia las mujeres tienes valores mas altos en valencia negativa que los hombres.

Traditionally, the participation of civic factor in the administration of justice within the Polish territories dates back to second half of the 19th century. In the Second German Reich and in the Russian Empire jury courts outnumbered the lay judge courts, whereas in the Austrian Empire only jury courts, and no lay judge courts, were present. The model of a lay judge begun to function in Poland, in a specific legal regime, in 1944. The present-day model of that institution, possessing a limited jurisdiction, has been in force since 2007. The main objects of criticism of the scholars are the practical workings of the position of lay judge. Professional judges possess the broadest experience of cooperation with lay judges, therefore they constitute the most valuable source of opinion on the latter. Hence the opinion of professional judges was substantial to and formed the bases for research papers on lay judges published in 1970 (Kubicki, Zawadzki), 1994 (Siemaszko), 2009 (Bartnik) and 2011 (Ruszewski), a partial summary of which is presented in this text.

Terrorism has become an everyday reality in most contemporary societies. In a context of heightened fear can juries be trusted to remain impartial when confronted by defendants charged with terrorism? Do they scrutinize prosecution cases carefully, or does emotion trump reason once the spectre of terrorism is invoked? This book examines these questions from a range of disciplinary perspectives. The authors look at the how jurors in terrorism trials are likely to respond to gruesome evidence, including beheading videos. The 'CSI effect' is examined as a possible response to forensic evidence, and jurors with different learning preferences are compared. Virtual interactive environments, built like computer games, may be created to provide animated reconstructions of the prosecution or defence case. This book reports on how to create such presentations, culminating in the analysis of a live simulated trial using interactive visual displays followed by jury deliberations. The team of international, transdisciplinary experts draw conclusions of global legal and political significance, and contribute to the growing scholarship on comparative counter-terrorism law. The book will be of great interest to scholars, students and practitioners of law, criminal justice, forensic science and psychology. (Ebook and free preview available through the link.)

I teach a CLE (continuing legal education course) for criminal attorneys and prosecutors here in Florida. We analyze the OJ and Casey Anthony criminal trials both of which became known as "trials of the century." They resulted in acquittals despite broad public opinion that these two accused murderers got away with heinous crimes. As part of the course program, I suggest that upon closer examination, their acquittals represent a great success for American criminal justice-for unusual reasons.