The Jury Decision-Making Process: Interpretation and Deliberation.

Abstract

Considerable evidence has been gathered from studies of "jury-like" decision-making suggesting that jurors tend to render "legally irrational" verdicts. Much of this research has failed to examine the influence of the jury deliberation on this process. Conclusions of juror "incompetence" also arise from evidence indicating that jurors may fail to conform to a model of deductive reasoning. This study is an analysis of factors comprising the jury decision-making process within the context of the jury deliberation. A model of jury decision-making is presented here that integrates perspectives from phenomenological sociology and cognitive psychology. Data for this study were gathered from deliberations of mock criminal trials. Adult subjects with recent experience on real trial juries were asked to deliberate in six-person juries until a unanimous verdict had been reached. These deliberations were tape recorded and transcribed. These conversations between jurors were coded, then analyzed, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Analysis of these deliberations indicates that these jurors, while not proceeding in a deductive mode, do appear to pay ample attention to those features of a trial presentation that are important for making legally appropriate decisions. They are apparently deliberate in their evaluation of alternative interpretations of a case. The articulation of an interpretive framework, or schema, for structuring the interpretation of the situation in question is an invariant feature of the deliberation process. As the number of alternative schemata increases, the complexity of the decision-making task increases. This is reflected in the increased length of deliberation, as well as in the greater likelihood that the deliberation will result in a hung jury. It was also found that the articulation of more than one interpretation of a case in support of a particular verdict does not increase the likelihood of that verdict being chosen by the jury. Rules, laws and instructions were found to constitute the subject matter for a substantial portion of juror talk. These deliberations demonstrate that the application of any rule or instruction to a concrete situation is always problematic, in that such rules are always interpretively applied. Judges' instructions were employed to promote or prohibit particular interpretations of the case at h and . There is ample evidence from these simulated deliberations that jurors do act under instructions from the judge, but they must implement these instructions interpretively. The analysis of these deliberations indicates that jurors do not "find the facts" of a case so much as they construct these facts, and their meanings, through their interpretations of the situation in question. Facts were found to have potentially multiple meanings, meanings that both derive from, and document the interpretive schemata being applied. Jurors bring their own "real-life" experience to bear upon the cases they consider, often framing the case in terms of some more familiar situation. Similarly, the relevance of rules and instructions is made apparent through reference to analogous situations encountered to jurors' real experiences. Stories and analogies are commonly recounted to demonstrate how a rule or instruction is appropriate to the case at h and . The data analyzed here support the argument that jury decision-making is both deliberate and rational. It is not a strictly deductive process, but rather a more inductive, holistic process dominated by operations of pattern-recognition. Jurors assemble alternative "gestalts" of the situation in question, and then decide upon the best choice among alternatives. This is different from the traditional, syllogistic "legal" model of jury decision-making, but it is a thoughtful process whereby jurors make sense of the cases that they see.