Judges exhibit their leaning in cases, and jurors take their cue from their judge. Even subtle differences in how judges read jury instructions can influence verdicts. Researchers (Blanck et al., 1985; Blanck et al., 1990; Hart, 1995) have investigated how judges' expectations for the outcome of a trial predicted both (a) the judges' verbal and nonverbal behavior, and (b) the verdicts returned by juries...
Automobile accident claims constitute a significant proportion of the personal injury bar's work, insurance defense work, and the state jury trial caseload, comprising 50% of all tort filings and 42% of all tort jury trials in state courts of general jurisdiction (Ostrom and colleagues, 1996). While a plaintiff's broken bone can be demonstrated through X-rays, whiplash (soft tissue or connective-tissue) injuries do not show up on common medical tests. Hans and Vadino (2007) surveyed 600 prospective jurors concerning their attitudes...
Warnings on products can affect jurors' allocation of responsibility for injuries incurred while using those products. First, the mere presence of a warning affects the allocation of responsibility...
Jurors come to court with beliefs about the allocation of responsibility for product injuries. These a priori beliefs anchor jurors' judgments in product liability cases. Laughery and colleagues (1995) report jurors' a priori allocation of responsibility for injuries involving...
While negligence is at the heart of personal injury claims at trial, negligence is not always at the heart of decisions to settle. Harris and colleagues (2006) examined settlement decisions in medical malpractice litigation, and studied the importance of the witness potential of the defendant physician, the witness potential of the plaintiff, and the reputation of the plaintiff's attorney...
Voir dire, especially in federal courts, is often limited to demographic information such as residence, age, marital status, occupation, spouse's occupation, children's ages and occupations, and prior jury service. At times, questioning is expanded beyond this demographic information to jurors' experiences, attitudes, habits, and tendencies that are case-related (and sometimes more generally). Moran and colleagues (1990) examined the effect of minimal versus extended voir dire ...
Demographic factors such as gender, age, occupation, marital status, education, and income generally have only a minor influence on verdicts. Hastie and colleagues (1983) examined the backgrounds and verdict inclinations of over 800 prospective Boston jurors...
Prospective jurors are often asked directive questions in voir dire. Directive questions tell jurors the answer and ask for affirmation, rather than asking for jurors' thoughts. Examples of directive questions include:...
Some people involved in litigation have prior criminal convictions. Attorneys can ignore this information or "inoculate" against it by raising the issue and refuting it in some way. One strategy is to raise the issue of a person's prior record in voir dire and ask jurors to overlook the prior record as they decide the current case. Reinard and Arsenault (2000) investigated whether asking jurors in voir dire to overlook a defendant's prior criminal record was an effective means of encouraging jurors not to focus on the prior record...
Prior jury service, either civil or criminal, has a modest influence on verdicts in criminal trials. Himelein and colleagues (1991) studied 143 criminal trials...