Does attorney incivility lose jury trials? | Online Jury Research Update

December 2nd, 2022|

Incivility in the courtroom is a widespread phenomenon that has myriad causes and takes myriad forms. Attorney rudeness, hostility, intimidation, personal attacks, unnecessary combativeness, poor manners and overzealous advocacy are examples of "Rambo Litigation" that violates norms of both courtroom decorum and mutual respect, and yet frequently occurs. Incivility increases judges' stress (Miller et al., 2021) and causes negative emotions in observers (e.g., anxiety, anger, disgust, fear) (see, for review, Edwards, 2022). Are jurors similarly affected by attorney incivility and, if so, does attorney incivility influence jurors' verdicts? Edwards (2022) examined how attorney incivility in the courtroom affected jurors' emotions,

Don’t Count on Being Able to Cure Implicit Bias

December 1st, 2022|

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Within the last few years, at least a few courts in the U.S. have started to wake up to some of the realities of the cognitive biases that can be an obstacle to a fair criminal or civil trial. For generations, courts have acted as though potential jurors could easily know and effectively shut off those biases. In many courts, of course, that is still the practice, with judges in effect clearing jurors with the question, “So you’re not biased, or you can set it aside? Good. Next.” But in a few jurisdictions, courts are

Witnesses, Do Your Homework

November 28th, 2022|

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Every witness preparing for testimony is going to prepare a little bit differently. Those helping with that prep need to adapt to the unique challenges presented by opposing counsel, the case characteristics, the witness’s role within the case, and the witness’s personality and communication habits. But there are inevitably some common features and messages contained in that preparation session. One common feature is the need for witnesses to do some follow-up “homework” on their own. Not everything can be durably fixed during the constraints of a single meeting, or even a series of meetings. And

How do jurors respond to a LGBTQ+ panic defense? | Online Jury Research Update

November 27th, 2022|

A LGBTQ+ panic defense is a legal strategy that asks jurors, directly or implicitly, to consider a victim's sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to explain a criminal defendant's violent reaction, including murder... Recent research has sought to identify characteristics of jurors that predispose them to finding a LGBTQ+ panic defense legitimate....

Almost Like Cheating

November 24th, 2022|

I keep a list of things clients have said during or after working with us on mock jury research. These tidbits illustrate the eye opening reactions some attorneys have when observing jurors deliberate. One of my favorites was from (now retired) Pete Burkert in Fort Myers, FL. After a series of mock juries, he said, excitedly, “It’s almost like cheating!” He was thrilled to know what resonated with typical jurors so that he could customize his case presentation. Knowing potential outcomes is one thing. Learning how to talk to a jury in their language is, however, critical in achieving

Do context-related nonprobative photos help or hurt a witness' credibility? | Online Jury Research Update

November 22nd, 2022|

hile information nonprobative to the truth of a statement is not admissible in court, it nonetheless often is presented as a part of probative evidence. .. Research has found that when judging the truth value of a statement, people's sense of the truth is affected by nonprobative information. For example, people are more likely to say a statement is true when accompanied by a context-related photo than when no photo is present... This "truthiness" effect reflects the influence of information nonprobative of the truth on people's judgments of truth. Derksen and colleagues (2020) conducted two experiments exploring the role of

Persuade Through Process

November 21st, 2022|

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: There is a danger in what I call the “product” orientation toward persuasion. That orientation focuses on persuasion as an outcome, as a discrete “thing” that is transferred from a sender to a receiver. The advocate in effect thinks, “I have something — it is called a correct opinion — and my mission is to transfer that from me to you.” In some ways, this product orientation is embedded in our language: We talk about how well we can “sell” an idea, or check to see whether our target is “buying” it or not. Instead of

Focus on the “Paths Not Taken” by the Other Side

November 17th, 2022|

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, it did not have to end up this way. At many points in time, and at many places along the course of this story, the individual sitting here with opposing counsel could have made a different choice. He could have taken a different path. He had multiple opportunities to have avoided this result.  Let’s look at some of these paths not taken… Envisioning alternatives is an important persuasive tool, because determinations of responsibility often come down to the choices a party made, and whether they were the right choices. From

To Convince on Negligence, Frame It as “Gain”

November 14th, 2022|

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: If a manufacturer rushes an untested new product to market, did they do it to realize a gain (let’s say to increase profits by expanding into a new market) or to prevent or mitigate a loss (maybe to protect the company against an economic downturn)? The difference in this case is not the act itself, nor necessarily the effects caused by the act. The difference is the way it is framed. We know that how we explain or contextualize an action shapes the judgments we make about it. For that reason, in litigation, choosing and developing

Jury Damages: Expect the Fundamentals to Still Apply Even in a Down Economy

November 10th, 2022|

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: So we have made it through the 2022 midterm elections. As is typical, the party out of power seems to have made some gains, although so far at least, the  anticipated “Red Wave” doesn’t seem large enough to surf. Going into the election, the common wisdom was that that the broadly felt effects of a challenging economy (including rising prices for groceries and fuel, and a full one-third of Americans living paycheck-to–paycheck) predicted a bolder move away from the party in power. Instead, what we saw is that incumbents tended to get re-elected, red districts and states tended to