Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

Finally, it is worth noting that a variety of initia-

tives intended to improve the functioning of juries

have been identified, implemented, and occasionally

examined in the past 25 years or so. These initiatives

include rewriting and simplifying legal instructions,

providing copies of the instructions to jurors, allowing

jurors to take notes and/or ask questions through the

attorneys, and allowing jurors access to exhibits

and/or transcripts during deliberation. Most recently,

jurors in some jurisdictions have been allowed to dis-

cuss the evidence prior to deliberation so long as all

members are present. Most of these initiatives have

been aimed at making jurors’ jobs easier by reducing

their cognitive burden and removing any constraints

on the process. While these changes have generally

not been found to systematically influence the nature

of observed verdicts and jurors almost always react

positively to them, there have been few efforts to eval-

uate how the deliberation process itself is affected.

A Final Thought

An unfortunate consequence of an early (and well-

known) likening of jury deliberation to the develop-

ment of a predetermined photographic image appears

to have been a squelching of scholarly interest in the

dynamics of the deliberation process. After all, what

value is there in studying what juries do if the final

outcome is so reliably predicted by the preference of

the initial majority? However, even though reversals

of the initial majority preference are relatively rare,

their absolute occurrence is still considerable given

the thousands of jury trials held each year. In a free

and democratic society, and with so much at stake for

the individual participants as well as the community,

it is clearly important that we understand how juries

go about making their decisions. Furthermore, in a

large number of those trials, deliberation itself is a

critical determinant of what those decisions are.

Dennis J. Devine

See alsoChicago Jury Project; Jury Size and Decision Rule;

Leniency Bias

Further Readings

Davis, J. H., Kameda, T., Parks, C., Stasson, M., &

Zimmerman, S. (1989). Some social mechanics of group

decision making: The distribution of opinion, polling

sequence, and implications for consensus. Journal of

Personality and Social Psychology, 57,1000–1012.

Devine, D. J., Clayton, L. D., Dunford, B. B., Seying, R., &

Pryce, J. (2001). Jury decision making: 45 years of

empirical research on deliberating groups. Psychology,

Public Policy, and Law, 7,622–727.

Ellsworth, P. C. (1989). Are twelve heads better than one?

Law and Contemporary Problems, 52,207–224.

Hastie, R., Penrod, S. D., Pennington, N. (1983). Inside the

jury.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Kalven, H., & Zeisel, H. (1966). The American jury.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Tanford, S., & Penrod, S. (1986). Jury deliberations:

Discussion content and influence processes in jury

decision making. Journal of Applied Social Psychology,

16,322–347.

JURYNULLIFICATION

Juries have the implicit power to acquit defendants

despite evidence and judicial instructions to the con-

trary. This power, called jury nullification, is embed-

ded in the jury’s right to return a verdict by its own

moral compass and has historically permitted sympa-

thetic juries to acquit those whom the jurors perceive

as legally guilty but morally upright. The criminal

jury’s power to deliver a verdict counter to both the

law and evidence resides in the fact that a general ver-

dict requires no explanation by the jury. Some citi-

zens’ groups and some legal scholars believe that the

jury not only should have the ability to nullify but also

the right to be explicitly informed of this right.

However, the majority of the legal community, with

near unanimity among sitting judges, prefers the sta-

tus quo—juries are not informed of this nullification

power but are free to exercise it without prompting

when the jury believes that a guilty verdict clearly vio-

lates community sentiment. Research has shown that

juries informed of their nullification power are more

likely to consider extralegal factors and may be more

prone to be persuaded by emotional biases.

A Short History of Jury Nullification

Judges uniformly instruct the jury that they must

apply the law as provided by the court. However,

jurors traditionally have been able to act as the “con-

science of the community,” a long-standing role that

412 ———Jury Nullification

J-Cutler (Encyc)-45463.qxd 11/18/2007 12:43 PM Page 412