Jurors' verdicts in sexual harassment cases are usually studied absent any consideration of the race of the plaintiff and defendant. Bothwell and colleagues (2006) examined discrimination against Black plaintiffs in sexual harassment cases, to determine whether White jurors are more inclined to attribute what happened to a plaintiff's ignorance or carelessness, rather than to defendant misbehavior. In the research, 186 prospective jurors made individual decisions regarding liability and damages before and after deliberating in 56 juries...

Many trials are conducted with courtroom interpretation of testimony. Berk-Seligson (1987) analyzed 2,470 answers by 27 Spanish-speaking witnesses as interpreted into English by six interpreters to determine if the interpreter's rendition conveyed a different impression of the witness from the one originally conveyed by the witness testifying in Spanish. ...

The study of jurors' opinion formation and change over the course of trials rarely relies on data from real jurors, and instead is usually based on studies of mock jurors or student jurors. Two studies have explored the verdict preferences of actual jurors who served in many different civil and criminal cases about when they began leaning toward one side or the other, and when they made up their minds about who should prevail...

Witnesses differ in how powerless or powerful their speech style is, and their speech style affects their credibility. O'Barr (1982) investigated the courtroom speech style of witnesses, and identified two speech styles: powerless speech (i.e., low social power) and powerful speech. Powerless speech includes:...

The position of the juror who is a dissenter in deliberations is glorified in the movie Twelve Angry Men. But which jurors dissent, which hang the jury, and which simply acquiesce to the majority's wishes? Waters and Hans (2008) investigated jurors who dissent from the majority on juries, and distinguished dissenters who hang the jury from dissenters who acquiesce to the majority opinion to allow a jury decision against the dissenter's individual wishes...

In the sentencing phase of capital cases, jurors frequently hear about a defendant's history of child abuse and alcohol abuse. The defense offers this evidence in mitigation. Stevenson and colleagues (2010) investigated whether jurors used a defendant's child abuse and alcohol abuse as mitigating factors, aggravating factors, or ignored the evidence. Over 370 death-qualified jurors...

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...