NCJ Number
194490
Journal
Law and Human Behavior Volume: 26 Issue: 1 Dated: February 2002 Pages: 19-41
Date Published
February 2002
Length
23 pages
Annotation
This article presents a study using the Internet to examine pretrial publicity (PTP) effects.
Abstract
Research examining the effects of PTP on individuals’ appraisals of a defendant and on the process and outcome of juror decision-making has been conducted over the past 35 years, demonstrating the potential for PTP to influence evaluations of a defendant’s likeability, sympathy for the defendant, and pretrial judgments of the defendant’s guilt. Although the research has been found to be internally valid, the external validity of the research is sometimes doubted. It is proposed that the Internet is a viable means of conducting PTP research that allows high versimilitude without high costs. It provides easy, low-cost access to an extremely large number of research participants. Target cities were selected to send introductory letters via email that explained the purpose of the study, which was to compare the effects of relatively high PTP exposure and relatively low PTP exposure on evidence evaluation and verdict decision-making in the trial of Timothy McVeigh for his role in the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City (Oklahoma) in April 1995. Results demonstrate that the Internet is a useful research tool and that it can help increase the verisimilitude of experimental conditions without adding prohibitively high costs. Potential participants across the country were contacted at minimal cost. A sample of participants was recruited that was more representative of the general population than the traditional student population used in jury research. Participants’ self-exposure to PTP could be taken advantage of as well as the naturally occurring differences in the nature and amount of PTP among different cities. An actual trial was studied involving an actual defendant. The Internet allowed the researcher to measure participants’ attitudes and opinions about trial evidence and the defendant throughout the course of the trial. More studies like this would contribute immensely to knowledge about mediating mechanisms as well as confidence about the generalizability of existing PTP research findings. 4 tables, 32 references