Sexual harassment knows no gender. Men can harass women or other men, and women can also harass men or other women. Wayne and colleagues (2001) explored how jurors perceive cross-sex and same-sex harassment for both males and females accused of harassment. Over 400 jurors made decisions in a hostile work environment case...

Judges and juries often reach similar decisions, although there are times these decisions differ. Eisenberg and colleagues (2006) analyzed thousands of trials from a substantial part of the nation's most populous counties...

In 1966, Kalven and Zeisel found that judges agreed with criminal verdicts 78% of the time. In 2005, Eisenberg and colleagues examined a new database of criminal trials and found essentially the same rate of judge-jury agreement. Eisenberg and colleagues report, however, that judges and juries differentially convict...

Studdert and colleagues (2006) recently analyzed the prevalence, characteristics, litigation outcomes, and costs of medical malpractice claims that lacked evidence of error. Trained physicians reviewed a random sample of 1,452 closed malpractice claims from five liability insurers to determine whether a medical injury had occurred and, if so, whether it was due to medical error...

Under the law, gender discrimination claims can be made by both women and men, although women traditionally are perceived by jurors as "typical" plaintiffs in such actions. Jurors' own gender can influence their perceptions of the validity of gender discrimination claims. Elkins and colleagues (2001) examined whether a "same sex" bias existed in the evaluation of gender discrimination claims, that is, whether male jurors evaluated claims of male plaintiffs more positively, and female jurors evaluated claims of female plaintiffs more positively...

Jurors who speak up and are opinionated are more likely to be excused than jurors who speak little or in a less opinionated manner. Wigley (1999) had 640 jurors in actual cases, of whom 225 were ultimately excused, complete psychological tests before going through voir dire...

Jurors are expected to provide candid and honest answers in voir dire. Attorney-conducted and judge-conducted voir dire is not equally effective in eliciting this self-disclosure...

Jurors often have strong attitudes about sex, abuse, and the protection of children that affect their ability to be fair and impartial in sex abuse trials. In 1997, Vidmar observed 849 prospective jurors in 25 Canadian criminal trials involving charges of sexual abuse, noting the percent of jurors self-reporting the inability to be fair and impartial in these types of cases...

Legally, the severity of a plaintiff's injury is irrelevant to decisions about liability. Although injury severity is directly relevant to the issue of compensation, an effect on the prior determination of liability would constitute an extralegal bias. Bornstein (1998) conducted two studies examining whether the severity of a plaintiff's injury affected jurors' verdicts of liability...

Jurors' attitudes about the death penalty are important to the outcome of capital cases and jury selection assistance has a demonstrable impact on sentencing recommendations. Nietzel and Dillehay (1986) report a study that examined the outcomes of 35 capital trials where a jury consultant was used in 17 cases, and no jury consultant used in the other 18 cases...