Project Justification for Applied Doctoral Project
MAROSA5913 
MatthewM.RosarioResFinalProject.docxRunning Head: BEFORE THE VERDICT: PROTECT THE BIAS SENTENCES 1
BEFORE THE VERDICT: PROTECT THE BIAS SENTENCES 7
Before the Verdict Sentence Bias
Matthew M. Rosario
Ashford University
June 22, 2019
Abstract
Despite this, the approached and outcome of a trial is determined early on during a variation in court using the voir dire procedure to select and manage the jury. According to Mulvaney and Little (2015), the importance of pre-trial composition and attention to jury selection grants judges significant discretion and strategies to reduce bias among jurors. Kerr and Jung (2018) research whether or not trial evidence should be presented to jurors before trial. Many states to include (e.g., Arizona, Colorado, the District of Columbia) have become more relaxed to permit a juror to discuss evidence before deliberation. The perceptions of jury selection in psychological literature focus on impartial bias during a trial in the courtroom. There are empirical studies which demonstrated the mechanism of counsel using the voir dire process to gain an advantage during a trial. Due to this, it is important to understand the literature review of the jury selection process to improve the selection theory of juries. More specifically, can personality inventories (Juries suggestibility theory) determine a jury’s verdict?
Before the Verdict Sentence Bias
Literature Review Synthesizes and Summary
Often time, many court cases are won or lost before trial because of the composition of the jury. Despite this, the approached and outcome of a trial is determined early on during a variation in court using the voir dire procedure to select and manage the jury. According to Mulvaney and Little (2015), the importance of pre-trial composition and attention to jury selection grants judges significant discretion and strategies to reduce bias among jurors. In other words, this allows the courts to craft an approach to maximize the chance of success during a trial. The courts may permit attorneys to examine prospective jurors and ask questions to consider proper. The voir dire process determines bias or prejudice of juror during selectin and falls under two categories such as determining basic statutory requirements for the jury and to reduce and determine prejudice (Mulvaney and Little, 2015). Many courts allow panelist to assess to determine the requirements before the process of voir dire. Prospective jurors response during voir dire provides the opportunity for attorneys to exercise their peremptory challenges. Peremptory challenges allow lawyers to dismiss a jury without cause. The number of peremptory challenge ranges between state and local laws.
During this time, the opportunity to condition the jury and commitment to the case it developed. More, importantly this is the first time jurors meet the attorneys and hear about the case in order assess the juror ability to analyze evidence and to see if there is any prejudice or experience which will affect the juror to be impartial during the trial (Mulvaney and Little, 2015). The effect of these decision early on can affect the outcome, but over the year, it has been increasingly hard to prevent prejudice or bias decision according to Crocker and Kovera (2010). Because of this, it has come difficult for judges and attorney to conclude whether or not venireperson is truly impartial. Venireperson are juror going through the process of selection, and although attorneys and judges have peremptory challenges and challenges for cause, this does not always provide insight of unaware bias a venireperson fails to report (Crocker and Kovera, 2010). The integrity of the venirperson is important, and a factor which influences their behavior must be noted, and proper research must be completed to challenge and impartial viewing. The theme of impartial and bias has permitted trial evidence before jury selection to promote explanation of bias (Kerr and Jung, 2018).
Kerr and Jung (2018) research whether or not trial evidence should be presented to jurors before trial. Many states to include (e.g., Arizona, Colorado, the District of Columbia) have become more relaxed to permit a juror to discuss evidence before deliberation. For instance, in Arizona, during a civil trial, a juror is allowed to deliberate about the cases in their hotel rooms. Many states are considering this approach for civil cases, but it is hard to determine the individual processing style and juror bias outside of the courtroom. According to Gunnell and Stephen (2010), a cognitive experiential self-theory (CEST) demonstrates and suggest that information processing proceeds within two paths and realistic jurors are jurors capable of overcoming bias and life influence. Within the legal skeptics justified in a claim that once juror is selected, it does not mean they will not be bias and impartial minded toward the case. Extralegal influence is a growing body within the literature of social science that focuses on characteristics of juror decision and the possible attraction leniency bias (Gunnell and Stephen, 2010). One of the most compelling evidence of attractiveness on juror decision has increased in literature, which allows consistency withstood of significant bias. Individual difference applied to juror decision making has shown the difference in personality and cognitive ability among the effect of juror performance and problem-solving skills (Gunnell and Stephen, 2010). The socio-cognitive theory within substantial research outweighs the highly punitive decision of the court and more prone to conviction when the status quo is not reached. Therefore, the independent assessment of parallel cognitive systems of the conscious mind or unconscious mind can have an analytical impact on the evidence-based understanding of jurors. So, can society have an impartial juror panel? What are the causes of juror deliberation coming up with a unanimous verdict? What leads to jurors to change their initial assessment whether or not to vote guilty or not guilty.
Using a systemic analysis of juror bias, it is important to understand how juror decision-making is influenced by an emotional child witness testimony. According to Cooper, Quas, and Clevland (2014) researched the assumed notion that emotional child witness plays a role in the judical process and effect jurors’ decision courses possible bias or impartial judgment. Why us this so important? Children witness can make it difficult for any person to think straight, but as a society we entrust adults to stay open, but how this is possible when children witness are emotional and according to Cooper et al. (2014), 5 out of 7 cases with a child witness resulted in a verdict of guilty. This can be viewed as a possible bias or emotional connection with the child witness leading to a guilty verdict. However, it is important to understand we do have a perfect system within selecting jurors because at any time a juror can change their decision for better or worst depending on how they are feeling, personality modalities. Therefore, how do we have a fair or somewhat far legal system, when we deprive of all different walk of life. Legal is straight forward, but understanding how personality modalities affect juries decision-making skills can play a vital role within the system and improve the process.
Trends and Patterns of Jurors Bais
According to Williams (2015), the problems and criticisms of jury vior dire are that in particular, the law should change to grantee attorney understand and can successfully conduct jury voir dire but considering each jury vior dir option separately and to set forth Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 24(a). This rule allows no one to conduct voir dire or the judge conducts the process without the attorneys. Unfortunately, this is credible because allowing one person to conduct voir dire does not suggest impartial jurors. The trends and patterns from literature illustrate that there is not a system to which to conduct vior dire that reduce bais. One of the most compelling trends and the pattern is that attorneys can set up the panel of jurors in favor of their side if they understand how to use vior dire properly. William (2015) suggest that lawyers usually use peremptory stikes which rely on stereotypes and hunches and with little information judge the appearance or generalize the prospective juror’s residence, age, and some time on the bases race or gender. In recent years, it is rare where a panel of a jury is only male or female, but there is no statue to protect this from happening. Moreover, Dewitt (2013) makes a great point that nonetheless, basic strategies are employed to maximize the chance of success at the trial. More importantly. The voir dire vary from courtroom to courtroom and case by case, which suggests there is not a standard across the United States. Although there rules and regulation, it is hard to determine if there are effective because there is no consistency across the courtroom and courthouse. For example, juror 29 is a stealth juror and listen to vior dire all day and can analyze what the lawyers are looking for by realizing prospective jurors with strong feeling and personality are press to admit they cannot be impartial and unbias. Understanding this and other literature, the trend demonstrates that some jurors are unable to be impartial, which will lead to the verdict that is not filled with integrity but personal satisfaction for the jury.
Mitigating Jurors’ biases is not only based on crime and environmental and developing influence but race. According to Ingriselle (2014), the sixth amendment of the United States guarantees the accused the right to an impartial jury. Moreover, it is known that black defendants are more likely to be found guilty than white defendants due to the social identity theory and can explain such results (Ingriselle, 20145. Many individuals are not explicitly racist, but identifiers are disfavoring the criminal justice system process. In comparison, to determine if theories investigated the claims, Ingriselle (2015) conduct a mock trial dervied from aversive racism theory, social identity theory towards procedural justice and instruction. Identifying the trends and themes through scholar article suggest that many of the research is consistent with one another, but have not suggested a plan of action to correct the issues of impartial and baizes. Forensic science evidence role has increased, and judge rarely rules the information inadmissible under the Daubert or Frye standards (3,6,7) (Thompson, Scurich, 2019). This is important when addressing the concern of impartial behavior and possible problem and simulation of the interpretation of the subjective judgment of juror to admit to exposed potentially biases. Therefore, the interpretation of the information and procedural justice it is important to understand the suggested information show that there is a problem with our process of selecting juries. The appreciation and the importance of having a far trial are hypothesized through the effect of evidentiary testing to allow a better understanding of how to particularly pick an impartial jury. For better or worse, a jury will usually or likely decide on the outcome of a trial before the evidence is presented.
Study Methodologies and Populations
According to Crocker and Kovera (2009), The voir dire must be rehabilitated in order to have an impartial attempt to eliminate all evidence of bias and reveal the integrity of all court cases. A social psychological perspective on juror rehabilitation framework explores whether biased jurors can be rehabilitated. Crocker and Kovera (2009) conducted an experiment designed to empirically test the legal assumption of rehabilitative questioning during vior dire to eliminate bias and impartial claims. There was 124 juries eligible community member in the New York City area. The participants were selected from a pull of volunteers via advertisements on craigslist, which paid $25 for participation. Seventy-two participants were male, and 52 were male, leading to 44% white, known-Hispanic, 34% African American, 12% Hispanic (Crocker and Kovera, 2009). The participants were categorized for bias using bias screening questions and the vior dire questionnaire. The judge addressed standard vior dire to all mock jurors in regards to television shows they watch to the news source they listen to. Finally, a one-hour trial video but the verdict was not given to the participants in order to give all participants a verdict questionnaire to choose from two verdict guilty and not guilty. It was concluded that 78 percent of jurors were bais with their answer do to life experiences. This was concluded based on an interview with each participant before the experiment was conducted to avoid any influences of the results. More importantly, the judge who help with the experiment gain a better understanding of psychological IDA-R and the scientific method. Therefore, juror bias was uncovered during the vior dire process and can be difficult because of compliance and social influence. All need to have a fair trial, but the research and evidence suggest that it is impossible to have a jury pool of all impartial jury. Thus, consistency within the criminal justice system mechanism must improve in order to reduce this issue within having a fair trial.
Supporting Research Design and Topic Relevance
The perceptions of jury selection in psychological literature focus on impartial bias during a trial in the courtroom. There are empirical studies which demonstrated the mechanism of counsel using the vior dire process to gain the advantage during a trial. Due to this, it is important to understand the literature review of the jury selection process to improve the selection theory of juries. More specifically, can personality inventories (Juries suggestibility theory) determine a jury’s verdict? According to Gardner, Titcomb, Cramer, Stroud, and Bate (2013) refer to perceiver personality as an individual difference in tendencies to view other interpersonal perceptions across situations. In other words, perceived personality has an interpersonal perception and to understand how attitudes and judgment affect jurors selections. This is relevant to psychology and science due to the advancement of the court system and the crimes being committed or being accused of committing.
According to Levett and Kovera (2010), potential jurors are questioned about their attitudes during trials after an adjudication examine is conducted to see any potential bias. This can be difficult because it is unknown how the jurors will be sway depending on the evidence. According to Rose (2008), it is important for jurors to only focus on the evidence and not the emotion, but a self-assessment of juror’s displayed biased during the first ten minutes of the trial. In contrast, the juror has to be able to separate personal and social desirability that can influence decision In contrast, the design of the vior dire does not provide or convey often social norms due to environmental difference during development. The presumption of equal competence is essential, but as Schwartzbery (2008) suggest that juries systematically empaneled information to become implausible because of the liability and judge’s instructions during vior dire process.
In contrast, Greene and Dougherty (2013), recommends a review of the sixth
Amendment due to an impartial judgment that is to be tried by an impartial jury. If one person on the panel is impartial, a new jury shall be created. The downside to this is how do you prove bias in the courtroom after the jury is chosen. We are entrusting 12 citizens to make an educated decision based on the evidence present in the courtroom. Is a degree of education need for a juror? No, the fact is anyone who is not a felony can be chosen for the duties. Also, the fact is that personality is a factor in problem-solving and the way or direction we receive or perceive the information being present. It is in common to understand common information, but when a case uses terms that are not common to jurors, their understanding of the information is limited and suggestive.
According to Greene and Dougherty (2013), personality is the key to understanding an individual mindset and reasoning skills that are in conjunction with critical skills. The progress to understanding personality in relations to juror selection can measure personality influence during emotional motivation conception to suggesting personality is the root cause and root consideration of our basic reasoning decision. Because of understanding if personality modalities affect juries before a trial can allow us to develop a system that is not impartial and bias during a trial if understanding the effect of pre-trail voir dire. The integrity of the venirperson is important, and a factor which influences their behavior must be noted, and proper research must be completed to challenge and impartial viewing. The theme of impartial and bais has permitted trial evidence before jury selection to promote explanation of bias (Kerr and Jung, 2018). So, it is key to develop research that investigates can personality inventories (Juries suggestibility theory) determine a jury’s verdict?
Conclusion
It is important to understand the criminal justice system over the years have bee able to finally see how important psychological approaches are when dealing with many legal cases in courts. The perceptions of jury selection in psychological literature focus on impartial bias during a trial in the courtroom. There are empirical studies which demonstrated the mechanism of counsel using the vior dire process to gain an advantage during a trial. Moreover, Dewitt (2013) makes a great point that nonetheless, basic strategies are employed to maximize the chance of success at the trial. More importantly. The voir dire vary from courtroom to courtroom and case by case, which suggests there is not a standard across the United States. The research presented would standardize the process for all states and to make sure the biases are not on the jury pool. Therefore the research that will be conducted will further the criminal justice system and allow a better understanding of personality and verdict decisions.
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