Discuss four problem areas regarding jury deliberations

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answer will include that the first area of concern involves jurors rarely being able to put aside their biases, attitudes, and values while making a decision. For example, jurors are less likely to find attractive defendants guilty with one study showing that defendants who wear glasses are less likely to be convicted because they are seen as too intelligent to have committed the crime. A second major problem is that jurors are not very good at separating evidence from other information, such as their perceptions of the defendant, attorneys, witnesses, and what they think the judge wants. For example, if complex scientific evidence is presented, jurors tend to be swayed more by the expertise of the witness than by the evidence itself. Today's jurors also place too much confidence in DNA evidence because crime-solving TV programs make it seem simple. Jurors who have been exposed to pretrial publicity tend to inappropriately incorporate that information into their jury deliberations, many times without being aware it has happened. The jurors' final verdict can also be influenced by inadmissible evidence, such as mention of a defendant's prior conviction. When jurors are told to ignore information that slips out in court, they find it very hard to do so. A third related problem occurs when jurors take into account the severity of the punishment a defendant faces. Jurors are not supposed to let this affect their verdict, but many do. A fourth area of difficulty arises because jurors usually cannot suspend judgment until all the evidence is in. Typically, they form an opinion early in the trial. It then becomes hard for them to fairly judge evidence that contradicts their opinion. However, the more severe the crime and the more clear-cut the evidence, the less a jury's biases affect the verdict.