The present study tested the hypothesis that jurors comply selectively with instructions to disregard inadmissible evidence. A total of 81 mock jurors read a murder trial summary in which a wiretap was ruled admissible, inadmissible because it was not reliable, or inadmissible because it was illegally obtained (there was also a no-wiretap control group). As predicted, participants were more likely to vote guilty and interpret subsequent evidence as more incriminating in the admissible and inadmissible/due-process conditions than in the admissible/unreliable and control groups. These results suggest that jurors are influenced not by the judge's ruling per se but by the causal basis for that ruling. Conceptual and practical implications are discussed.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Anderson, C. A., Lepper, M. R., & Ross, L. (1980). Perseverance of social theories: The role of explanation in the persistence of discredited information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 1037-1049.
2.
Brehm, J. W. (1966). A theory of psychological reactance. New York: Academic Press.
3.
Broeder, D. (1959). The University of Chicago jury project. Nebraska Law Review, 38, 744-760.
4.
Carretta, T. R., & Moreland, R. L. (1983). The direct and indirect effects of inadmissible evidence. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 13, 291-309.
5.
Carter v. Kentucky, 450 U.S. 288 (1981).
6.
Cavoukian, A., & Doob, A. N. (1980). The effects of a judge's charge and subsequent re-charge on judgments of guilt. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 1, 103-114.
7.
Darley, J. M., & Gross, P. H. (1983). A hypothesis-confirming bias in labeling effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 20-33.
8.
Edwards, K., & Bryan, T. S. (1997). Judgmental biases produced by instructions to disregard: The (paradoxical) case of emotional information. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23, 849-864.
9.
Elliott, R., Farrington, B., & Manheimer, H. (1988). Eyewitness credible and discredible. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 18, 1411-1422.
10.
Fein, S. (1996). The effects of suspicion on attributional thinking and the correspondence bias. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 1164-1184.
11.
Fein, S., Hilton, J. L., & Miller, D. T. (1990). Suspicion of ulterior motivation and the correspondence bias. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 753-764.
12.
Fein, S., McCloskey, A. L., & Tomlinson, T. M. (in press). Can the jury disregard that information?: The use of suspicion to reduce the prejudicial effects of pretrial publicity and inadmissible testimony. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
13.
Fitzgerald, R., & Ellsworth, P. C. (1984). Due process vs. crime control: Death qualification and jury attitudes. Law and Human Behavior, 8, 31-51.
14.
Frank, J. (1930). Law and the modern mind. New York: Tudor.
15.
Golding, J. M., Fowler, S. B., Long, D. L., & Latta, H. (1990). Instructions to disregard potentially useful information: The effects of pragmatics on evaluative judgments and recall. Journal of Memory and Language, 29, 212-227.
16.
Golding, J. M., & Hauselt, J. (1994). When instructions to forget become instructions to remember. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 178-183.
17.
Greene, E., & Dodge, M. (1995). The influence of prior record evidence on juror decision-making. Law and Human Behavior, 19, 67-78.
18.
Haney, C. (1984). On the selection of capital juries: The biasing effects of the death qualification process. Law and Human Behavior, 8, 121-132.
19.
Hatvany, N., & Strack, F. (1980). The impact of a discredited key witness. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 10, 490-509.
20.
Horowitz, I. A., & Willging, T. E. (1991). Changing views of jury power: The nullification debate, 1787-1988. Law and Human Behavior, 15, 165-182.
21.
Johnson, H. M. (1994). Processes of successful intentional forgetting. Psychological Bulletin, 116, 274-292.
22.
Johnson, H. M., & Seifert, C. M. (1994). Sources of the continued influence effect: When misinformation in memory affects later inferences. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory, and Cognition, 20, 1420-1436.
23.
Kadish, M., & Kadish, S. (1971). The institutionalization of conflict: Jury acquittals. Journal of Social Issues, 27, 199-217.
24.
Kagehiro, D. K. (1990). Defining the standards of proof in jury instructions. Psychological Science, 1, 194-200.
25.
Kalven, H., Jr., & Zeisel, H. (1966). The American jury. Boston: Little, Brown.
26.
Kassin, S. M., & Studebaker, C. A. (in press). Instructions to disregard and the jury: Curative and paradoxical effects. In J. M. Golding & C. M. MacLeod (Eds.), Intentional forgetting: Interdisciplinary approaches. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
27.
Kassin, S. M., Williams, L. N., & Saunders, C. L. (1990). Dirty tricks of cross-examination: The influence of conjectural evidence on the jury. Law and Human Behavior, 14, 373-384.
28.
Kassin, S. M., & Wrightsman, L. S. (1979). On the requirements of proof: Timing of judicial instruction and mock juror verdicts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1877-1887.
29.
Kassin, S. M., & Wrightsman, L. S. (1988). The American jury on trial: Psychological perspectives. Washington, DC: Hemisphere.
30.
Kerr, N. L. (1981). Social transition schemes: Charting the group's road to agreement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41, 684-702.
31.
Kerwin, J., & Shaffer, D. R. (1994). Mock jurors versus juries: The role of deliberations in reactions to inadmissible testimony. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 153-162.
32.
Kramer, G. P., Kerr, N. L., & Carroll, J. S. (1990). Pretrial publicity, judicial remedies, and jury bias. Law and Human Behavior, 14, 409-438.
33.
Krulewitch v. United States, 336 U.S. 440 (1949).
34.
Mueller, C. B., & Kirkpatrick, L. C. (1995). Modern evidence: Doctrine and practice. Boston: Little, Brown.
35.
Otto, A. L., Penrod, S. D., & Dexter, H. R. (1994). The biasing impact of pretrial publicity on juror judgments. Law and Human Behavior, 18, 453-469.
36.
Packer, H. (1968). The limits of the criminal sanction. Stanford, CA' Stanford University Press.
37.
Padawer-Singer, A., & Barton, A. H. (1975). Free press, fair trial. In RJ. Simon (Ed.), The jury system: A c7itical analysis (pp. 123-142). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Press.
38.
Pennington, N., & Hastie, R. (1992). Explaining the evidence: Tests of the story model for juror decision-making. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 189-206.
39.
Pickel, K. L. (1995). Inducing jurors to disregard inadmissible evidence: A legal explanation does not help. Law and Human Behavior, 19, 407-424.
40.
Schul, Y. (1993). When warning succeeds: The effect of warning on success in ignoring invalid information. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 29, 42-62.
41.
Schul, Y., & Burnstein, E. (1985). When discounting fails: Conditions under which individuals use discredited information in making a judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 894-903.
42.
Schul, Y., & Manzury, F. (1990). The effects of type of encoding and strength of discounting appeal on the success of ignoring invalid testimony. European Journal of Social Psychology, 20, 337-349.
43.
Schuller, R. A. (1995). Expert evidence and hearsay: The influence of "secondhand" information on jurors' decisions. Law and Human Behavior, 19, 345-362.
44.
Sue, S., Smith, R. E., & Caldwell, C. (1973). Effects of inadmissible evidence on the decisions of simulated jurors: A moral dilemma. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 3, 345-353.
45.
Thompson, W. C., Fong, G. T., & Rosenhan, D. L. (1981). Inadmissible evidence and juror verdicts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40, 453-463.
46.
Underwood, R. H., & Fortune, W. H. (1988). Trial ethics. Boston: Little, Brown.
47.
United States v. Grunewald, 233 F.2d 556 (1956).
48.
United States v. Steele, 727 F.2d 580 (1984).
49.
Wegner, D. M. (1994). Ironic processes of mental control. Psychological Review, 101, 34-52.
50.
Weinberg, H. I., & Baron, R. S. (1982). The discredible eyewitness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 8, 60-67.
51.
Wissler, R. L., & Saks, M. J. (1985). On the inefficacy of limiting instructions: When jurors use prior conviction evidence to decide on guilt. Law and Human Behavior, 9, 37-48.
52.
Wolf, S., & Montgomery, D. A. (1977). Effects of inadmissible evidence and judicial admonishment to disregard on the judgments of mock jurors. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 7, 205-219.
