NCJ Number
195478
Journal
Law and Human Behavior Volume: 26 Issue: 3 Dated: June 2002 Pages: 353-364
Date Published
2002
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This study reported on the interaction between testimonial consistency and eyewitness confidence on mock-jurors' judgement of probability of defendant guilt and verdicts.
Abstract
One hundred and thirty mock jurors heard an audio-taped trial of an armed robbery suspect and then completed a questionnaire which included manipulation checks and the dependent measures. The manipulation checks were designed to compare a witness who came across as confident throughout the initial testimony and cross-examination from one who was not so confident. Dependent measures shown included means and standard deviations for the rating of probability that the defendant committed the crime based on confidence conditions and testimony consistency. It was found that the level of the witness's confidence had a strong impact on jurors' verdicts, independent of whether the testimony contained inconsistencies in response to questioning by prosecution and defense attorneys, particularly when testimony covered a wide area rather than being brief and specific to a limited issue. However, it is suggested that current knowledge reveals very little about the interaction between these two variables. Tables, references