NCJ Number
87873
Editor(s)
B D Sales
Date Published
1981
Length
514 pages
Annotation
Fourteen articles and studies broadly cover critical research on the trial and jury process, emphasizing major research findings and extensive review of the existing literature.
Abstract
Selections examine the trial process from beginning to end. An analysis of voir dire -- the preliminary examination of witnesses and jury -- is followed by a discussion of the psychological difficulties witnesses have in accurately remembering their eyewitness accounts. The jury is covered in detail, from a consideration of its ability to make evaluations accurately and descriptions of cues used in evaluating testimony to a discussion of the impact of the language of witnesses and attorneys on jury decisionmaking. Juror deliberations and the reaching of a verdict are analyzed at length, using such methods as integration analysis, group developmental processes, mathematical models, and decision theory. The final selections investigate the sentencing decisions of the judge and the parole board. An index is provided; each chapter includes extensive references and footnotes. For individual articles, see NCJ 87874-86. (Author summary modified)