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Ruva, C., McEvoy, C. & Becker Bryant, J. (2007). Effects of Pre-Trial Publicity and Jury Deliberation on Juror Bias and Source Memory Errors Applied Cognitive Psychology 21, 45-67.
Is the decision of the jury as objective as it should be? In their article, titled “Effects of Pre-Trial Publicity and Jury Deliberation on Juror Bias and Source Memory Errors”, authors Ruva, Mc Evoy & Bryant, discuss the issue of jury impartiality by analyzing the degree to which the access to media information affect the decisions of the jury member and cause them to interpret the evidence either in favor or against the defendant. The authors’ research question was whether the jurors can base their verdict solely on the evidence presented during trial, if they were exposed to biased pre-trial publicity (Ruva, McEvoy & Becker, 2007), and whether the fact that they take the decision as a group eliminates the memory errors, and positively influences their decision-making process. The idea that jurors cannot distinguish between memories derived from biased PTP and memories of the evidence presented during the trial is problematic because it undermines the entire justice process (Ruva, McEvoy & Becker, 2007).
In order to assess the impact of biased PTP on the jurors, the authors asked the participants to read either negative news or neutral news for the control group, before they were asked to act as mock jurors. The jurors watched a filmed criminal trial. Half of them made the decision as a group, and the other half took a decision individually (Ruva, McEvoy & Becker, 2007). The study employed a number of 558 participants, who were divided into groups of up to 6 jurors, or were asked to take a decision independently. This experimental research design employed multiple instruments, including personality tests, questionnaires, a source monitoring test, a 7-point Likert scale which was designed to assess the characteristics regarding the credibility of the defendant. The data was analyzed using 2 X 2 between-subjects ANOVAs . Therefore, this experimental study subsequently employed a quantitative research method in order to evaluate the participants’ responses. Quantitative research is highly credible because it eliminates bias by basing the results on verifiable data. The researchers also hid the real purpose of the study to the participants in the pre-trial phase, when they were asked to read the biased materials on the crime, and did not allow them to find out that they would act as jurors. This increases the validity of the study, because it replicates a real-life situation, where the jurors read the biased materials before being notified that they would act as jurors and therefore, they cannot avoid being influenced by the biased information.
The methodology was appropriate for the purpose of the study. Experimental research is very often employed in psychology in order to discover the effect of different types of stimuli on individuals. Furthermore, the different tests and questionnaires which were applied to the participants had the purpose of providing the researchers with as much data as possible. This quantifiable data is not only exact, but also allows the researcher to examine a higher number of participants, thus coming with results which are more representative for the studied group. In this study, the researchers formed 25 groups of jurors for each studied category , namely exposed to biased PTP v. non-exposed jurors, and collaborating v. nominal decision-making. Consequently, there were 50 groups of jurors exposed to biased articles. This large number of participants allowed the researchers to make generalizations regarding the results. In addition, the statistical analysis which was used in order to interpret the data allowed researchers to obtain unbiased and exact results. Therefore, the methodology was appropriate and exact.
The conclusions of the study were that biased pre-trial media articles do affect individual jurors’ objectivity and negatively influences them in regards to the guilt of the defendant. However, the researchers also found that group verdicts are more objective, and that memory errors, which are partially related to pre-trial articles, are generally avoided in collaborative decision-making, because jurors are likely to correct each other. However, the research also found that group juries are likely to regard the defendant as less credible, which is consistent with past research regarding the polarization of individual biases (Ruva, McEvoy & Becker, 2007). The implications of the study are that in cases where the pre-trial publicity is very high, it may be impossible for a defendant to receive a fair trial.
While the research conducted by the researchers was extremely effective, particularly because it involved a high number of participants, and a very rigorous method of study, the scope of the research may have been too broad, and consequently, the quality of the study may be reduced, as compared to a study in which fewer variables were used. For example, using only collaborating jurors who were exposed to biased articles, and collaborating jurors where were not exposed, can increase the relevance of the study even more, because there would be 50 groups in each category, as compared to only 25. Furthermore, this would allow the researchers to study the data in more depth, and to avoid any errors during running the analysis. It would also make the study clearer for the readers.
Despite the wide scope of the research, the study was extremely interesting and complex, and the methodology was strong enough to provide important data for specialists and concerned parties. Their hypotheses were not only interesting, but also extremely relevant today, when people have access to a great amount of information from ambiguous and doubtful sources, particularly on the internet. These studies are extremely important and necessary, and could change the method of conducting criminal trials in cases where high media coverage is expected.
The research advances the understanding of memory errors in group deliberation and future research should expand on this theme, and explore different circumstances in which memory errors are more likely to occur, what kind of information is more likely to be interpreted erroneously, and what can be done differently so as to eliminate these types of error.
References
Ruva, C., McEvoy, C. & Becker Bryant, J. (2007). Effects of Pre-Trial Publicity and Jury Deliberation on Juror Bias and Source Memory Errors Applied Cognitive Psychology 21, 45-67.
