Doctoral Dissertation Research: Improving the Accuracy of Juror Self-Reports of Bias during Rehabilitative Voir Dire

法院长期以来一直承认审前宣传是陪审员偏见的一个来源。为了保障被告获得公平和公正陪审团的权利，法院经常试图“恢复”承认偏见的陪审员，询问他们是否可以抛开偏见，做到公平和公正。然而，研究表明，陪审员对自己公正无私能力的自我报告在很大程度上是不准确的。例如，无论他们在审前公开的程度如何，陪审员通常都报告有能力做到公平和公正。因此，这种陪审员改造的做法是无效的。提高自我报告的准确性至关重要，因为不准确的自我报告不仅损害被告获得公平和公正陪审团的权利，而且还可能造成额外的诉讼，从而需要法院投入宝贵的时间和资源，削弱公众对法律的制度的准确性和合法性的信心。本研究探讨了来自法官和其他陪审员的从众压力如何影响陪审员自我报告的准确性，并测试了一种旨在提高自我报告偏见准确性的新型干预措施的有效性。本研究以两个陪审团模拟实验，探讨陪审员不正确报告其公平公正能力背后的机制，以及陪审员复原的成效。首先，本项目将测试法官、其他陪审员或两者的行为是否通过培养压力使陪审员的行为符合法官和其他潜在陪审员的要求而影响陪审员自我报告的准确性。第二，本研究将测试干预的有效性，以减少在陪审员康复和减弱审前宣传陪审员的决策偏见的影响的从众压力。研究表明，审前宣传部分通过创造来源监测错误，使陪审员混淆从审前宣传中获得的证据与审判期间提出的证据，从而使陪审员的决策产生偏见。拟议的干预措施允许陪审员在被问及他们是否有能力抛开偏见和保持公正之前，反思并写下通过审前宣传获得的信息。这种干预措施应减少遵守压力和来源监测错误，从而提高自我报告的准确性。此外，拟议的研究将涉及学生就读于西班牙裔服务机构作为研究助理，有助于学生从代表性不足的群体在科学研究生学习的准备。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

The courts have long acknowledged pretrial publicity as a source of juror bias. To safeguard defendants' rights to a fair and impartial jury, the courts frequently attempt to "rehabilitate" jurors who admit bias by asking them if they could set aside their bias and be fair and impartial. Yet research indicates that jurors' self-reports of their ability to be fair and impartial are largely inaccurate. For example, regardless of their level of exposure to pretrial publicity, jurors typically report an ability to be fair and impartial. Therefore, this practice of juror rehabilitation is ineffective. Enhancing self-reporting accuracy is critical given that inaccurate self-reports not only undermine defendants' right to a fair and impartial jury but can also create additional litigation, thus requiring valuable time and resources from the courts and weakening public confidence in the accuracy and legitimacy of the legal system. The present research examines how conformity pressures from the judge and other jurors influence jurors' self-reporting accuracy and tests the effectiveness of a novel intervention designed to increase the accuracy of self-reported bias. This project examines the mechanism behind jurors' inaccurate reports of their ability to be fair and impartial and the effectiveness of juror rehabilitation in two jury simulation experiments. First, this project will test whether the behaviors of the judge, other jurors, or both are influencing jurors' self-reporting accuracy by fostering pressures for them to conform their behavior to the request of the judge and other potential jurors. Second, this research will test the effectiveness of an intervention for decreasing conformity pressures during juror rehabilitation and attenuating the biasing effects of pretrial publicity on jurors' decision making. Research shows that pretrial publicity biases jurors' decision-making in part by creating source monitoring errors wherein jurors confuse evidence learned from pretrial publicity with evidence presented during trial. The proposed intervention allows jurors to reflect on and write down information obtained through pretrial publicity prior to being questioned about their ability to set aside bias and be impartial. This intervention should decrease conformity pressures and source monitoring errors and, in turn, increase self-reporting accuracy. In addition, the proposed research will involve students enrolled at a Hispanic-serving institution as research assistants, contributing to the preparation of students from underrepresented groups for graduate study in the sciences.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.