Research Survey on Juries and Evidence

Difficult to assess these things in text form with a limited amount of information, being unable to judge the credibility of witnesses, hear cross-examination, etc. I’d be interested to see a link to the final paper, though.

“it does say 15-25 minutes.

gen y again…. “

I saw that, but when was the last time an internet survey actually took the amount of time indicated? For me, I usually get through them much more quickly.

And I’m gen X, completely.

I found it very subjective. Closed statements with no avenue for anomaly, with incongruous questions being asked.

I was forced to make decisions based upon information that was not provided, hence where the study breaks from the duties of a juror.

As far as the study goes though, it fits within the ‘how jurors weigh up information as they make decisions’ category well enough.

I tried to fill it out, and gave up. The thing that worries me most about it (and perhaps this reflects how courts work – I’ve only seen the TV versions) is that I’m asking lots of questions, and there’s no way to get answers.

Without having more information (evidence, cross-examination and the like) there’s just not enough for me to go on to even come close to ‘comfortably’ saying Guilty or Not Guilty.

If this is what it’s really like, then count me scared.

I found that the wording in several instances made it harder to think clearly about the question, eg.

“Mr XXXX and Mr YYYYY organized the crime on their own?”

If I am thinking that no actual crime took place on the part of the defendants, then a question like that is phrased very badly, although I do understand that the same questions are used for each scenario.

I found how my decision stacked up against everybody else that answered the same scenario to be quite interesting. While I though that there was a good chance that the defendants had been guilty (based on my imagination of a drunken confrontation late at night), no real evidence (witnesses statements etc) were presented to confirm anything other then the defendants involvement in the incident. With out that, I don’t know how you could consider someone guilty, as the majority of other people have.

Filled it out. Not unrealistic. Hard to set a confidence level.
My one and only (and quite old) experience as a juror suggests that some people take a superficial and uncritical approach to this responsibility. I would choose a judge only trial every time.

Just lie as you fill it out.

Should make the data usefull.

Call me cynical, but won’t “Quality of Information” equate to “put the right spin on”?

I’m sure marketing folks know more about this…

it does say 15-25 minutes.

gen y again….

Too convoluted and took too long. I got part way through it (past first scenario) then closed the browser. Having a status (eg page X of Y) would help users to know how far through they were.