Cultures differ in norms of sexual conduct for men and women, and in what is perceived as sexual harassment. Schwartz and Hunt (2011) investigated how jurors respond to arguments about cultural differences using a hostile work environment sexual harassment case involving a Latina plaintiff....
Jurors with no specific expert knowledge routinely need to evaluate complex and conflicting expert testimony. Vidmar (1995) conducted extensive post-trial interviews of jurors in five different medical malpractice cases to determine how jurors handled a "battle of experts"...
The insurance exclusionary rule in civil trials prohibits disclosure to jurors about whether a party is insured to prevent, among other things, jurors adjusting damages awards because a party is insured. Does silence about insurance during trial imply that jurors do not discuss the matter spontaneously during deliberations? Jurors are aware of insurance, and often raise the issue spontaneously. For example, Diamond and colleagues (1989)...
Jurors often receive instructions limiting the use of particular evidence offered at trial. Wissler and Saks (1985) investigated whether jurors are able to follow limiting instructions about a defendant's prior conviction. One group of jurors heard...
Experts are important witnesses in a high percentage of civil and criminal trials. Jurors use multiple criteria to judge the credibility of expert testimony...
Increasingly, courts are allowing jurors to submit questions for witnesses during trial. Hannaford-Agor and Connelly (2006) of the National Center for State Courts report that a national survey of 8,066 trials found that jurors were permitted to submit questions for witnesses in 14% of criminal trials and 18% of civil trials. Heuer and Penrod (1994) conducted a national field experiment to explore the effects of juror submitted questions for witnesses...
Witnesses are confronted frequently in cross-examination with complex and leading questions that contain multiple parts, negatives, double-negatives, advanced vocabulary and legal terminology. Witnesses have difficulty deciphering and answering such questions accurately. Ellison and colleagues (2010) investigated whether instructing witnesses about attorneys' cross-examination questioning techniques could improve the accuracy of answers witnesses provide. Numerous adult witnesses watched ...
Jurors differ in whether they believe damage awards are excessive, a litigation crisis exists, and tort reform is necessary. Such litigation crisis beliefs often influence both liability verdicts and punitive damage awards, though not always...
A defense claim that a confession is false is difficult for jurors to understand and accept. Costanzo and colleagues (2010) surveyed 461 surrogate jurors from 7 different cities in the U.S. about false confessions, the ability to discern true from false confessions, permissible interrogation tactics, likely rates of false confessions for different crimes, and expert testimony on police interrogations....
Civil trials usually prohibit discussion of, and so are silent about, payment of attorneys' fees by litigants. Silence about attorneys' fees is not equivalent to jurors being unaware of them...