Critically Discussing Pretrial Publicity's Influence on Jury Decisions

This essay delves into the significant impact of pretrial publicity (PTP) on jury decision-making within the legal system. It explores various psychological models, such as the story construction model and theories of justice, to explain how jurors process and interpret information presented during trials. The essay highlights the influence of PTP on confirmation bias, emphasizing the tendency of jurors to favor information aligning with their pre-existing beliefs. It discusses the advantages and disadvantages of PTP, examining the ethical considerations and potential biases that can arise. Through case studies and research findings, the essay illustrates how PTP can shape perceptions of defendants, influence retributive attitudes, and potentially compromise the fairness of legal proceedings. The conclusion emphasizes the need for awareness and mitigation of PTP's effects to ensure just outcomes in the courtroom.

Running head: ESSAY
Legal Psychology SEM1
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1ESSAY
Introduction
Under most circumstances legal psychologists adopt cognitive and social principles and
implement them for addressing issues that are present in the legal system like decision making,
interviewing, eyewitness’ memory, trials, and investigations. The jury refers to a unique
institution and necessitates ordinary citizen without sufficient legal training to be an observer to
evidences, while making a sense of contradicting facts, and implementing legal rules (Devine &
Macken, 2016). Decision making offers a real-world setting for assessing theoretical concepts
that are related to memory, judgment, reasoning, stereotyping, attribution, group behaviour, and
persuasion. This essay will elaborate on the influence that pretrial publicity creates on juror’s
decision making.
Discussion
With the aim of explaining decision making, psychologists have proposed a plethora of
decision making models. According to the story construction model, evidences are presented to
jurors in a normal trial in a disorganised format, and not in any relevant or logical order. The
testimony of the witnesses also remain unsystematic, thereby making the jurors gather and
organize evidences in a comprehensive narrative, having a causal arrangement (Willmott,
Boduszek, Debowska & Woodfield, 2018). This calls for the need of describing the series of
events that are being investigated, following which jurors create episodes thus explaining the
motivation or intentions of the offenders, based on personal knowledge of the juror. Retributive
justice theory states that any person involved in wrongdoing deserves strict punishment, and that
its severity must be proportional to the harm inflicted (Corradetti & Eisikovits, 2016). This often

2ESSAY
influences jurors to give a punishment to the offender that causes sufficient pain, thus
outweighing the pleasure resultant from committing the offense.
In contrast, the theory of commonsense justice is a reflection of what individuals consider
reasonable and just. It has been mentioned by Flinkel that there exists two types of law namely,
‘law of the books’ that encompasses constitutional law and parliament enactment, and those
which have been developed through common law cases. Contrary to law present in the books,
this theory of emphasizes on pre-existing notions about legal system that are considered pertinent
by the jurors during the trial process (Robbennolt & Hans, 2017). The juror generally finds it
difficult to implement ‘black-letter law’ owing to the inconsistency with what is just and
fair. Hence, this theory states that jurors must give a verdict that is measured appropriate by the
society, as opposed to the orders that are not congruent with the principles of the public.
Pretrial publicity (PTP) creates an impact on confirmation bias that encompasses the
tendency of jurors to attend, speak out and recall arguments and evidences that are congruent
with their pre-existing beliefs, while discarding information contrary to the same. Often
information that is considered newsworthy by the media about the nature of allegations, the
defendant’s characters other gets reported to jurors (Mannes, 2016). Despite the right to free
press and speech, there remains a concern that sharing pertinent information about the trial
often leads to bias, and generates negative perceptions regarding the defendants or perpetrators.
According to Ruva and Coy (2019) exposure of jurors to PTP is typically certainty prone,
particularly when the publicity is done with the aim of eliciting an emotional response, rather
than sharing details facts. Findings from trial simulation studies have also found that bias
generally does not get eliminated by remedy that often encompasses ‘voir dire’ or continuances
(Vitriol & Kovera, 2018).

3ESSAY
According to Toobin (2016) prominent examples of PTP include the trials of O.J.
Simpson and Patricia Campbell Hearst that had been well-covered by news associations, and it
was found that the jurors were prejudiced by the coverage. On using a real case, Staggs (2017)
tested the impacts of PTP on mock jury decision-making and found that the sequence in which
participants observed PTP had conflicting impacts on pre-deliberation decision making of each
jury, nevertheless had no considerable contrary effects on concluding judgment pronouncement
across the groups. The single juror traits that had noteworthy effect on the consideration were
professed communicative influence, apparent participation, necessity for cognition, and
encouragement to develop and converse case evidence.
Staggs and Landreville (2017) conducted a research based on James Holmes, a criminal
wrongdoer in the Colorado theatre gunfire incident. The findings accurately suggested that PTP
considerably influenced jurors’ discernment about James Holmes as malevolent and resulted in
augmented retributivist support that made the jurors consider Holmes worthy of a harsher
chastisement. In addition, the prejudicial consequence of PTP has been established in both civil
and criminal cases and is superior when the PTP is psychologically based, containing graphic
particulars of an atrocious rape incident, rather than truthful details of the criminal account of the
defendant.
Similarly, findings from another research suggested that under most circumstances,
publicity about an offender is overpoweringly negative and leads to the generation of extremely
detrimental aspects, including grave dependence on regulation enforcement and hearing sources,
frequent occasions of sensationalized imageries of the offense and unlawful defendant, and the
enclosure of lawfully excludable objects (Bakhshay & Haney, 2018). In the words of Ruva
(2018) there has been spectacular changes media coverage of civil and criminal cases in recent

4ESSAY
years (e.g., Facebook, blogs, Twitter, YouTube, and news sources), thus increasing public access
to facts and eliminating geographical boundaries. Nonetheless, Mannes and Foster (2016) also
mentioned that PTP has certain advantages as well. It facilitates the greater society to verify both
facts and fiction related to unresolved cases, thus speculating about the offense of yet to be
convicted defendant. However, people have an inclination of processing information more
seriously when in a bad mood, thus affecting juror decision-making. PTP also violates the ethical
principles of confidentiality, nonmaleficence, respect and dignity. The accused also get judged in
an environment that is replete with sensationalism and prejudice. The media also ignores the
ethics that no defendant’s reputation must be needlessly injured.
Conclusion
Thus, it can be concluded that the psychology of jurors, prior to giving a verdict on a case
is largely governed by PTP. The only advantage of PTP is that it disseminates information about
a criminal case beyond linguistic and geographical boundaries, thus increasing awareness of the
society about a crime and its proceedings. Nonetheless, it is a matter of major concern since it
reinforces negative perception about the defendant amid the public, together with the jury. This
in turn encourages retributive attitudes of the jurors concerning the punishment that the
defendant deserves, thereby often violating the process of thorough investigation of facts and
causing potential harm to the offenders.

5ESSAY
References
Bakhshay, S., & Haney, C. (2018). The media’s impact on the right to a fair trial: A content
analysis of pretrial publicity in capital cases. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 24(3),
326. https://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2018-37845-003
Corradetti, C., & Eisikovits, N. (2016). Transitional Justice, Retributive Justice and
Accountability for Wrongdoing. In Theorizing Transitional Justice (pp. 72-81).
Routledge.
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315551180/chapters/10.4324/978131555118
0-10
Devine, D. J., & Macken, S. (2016). Scientific Evidence and Juror Decision Making: Theory,
Empirical Research, and Future Directions. In Advances in Psychology and Law (pp. 95-
139). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43083-6_4
Mannes, S. (2016). The Power of the pen: The impact of knowledge of defendant character
present in pretrial publicity varies by defendant race. Applied Psychology in Criminal
Justice, 12(1). http://dev.cjcenter.org/_files/apcj/APCJ%20SPRING%202016-
Mannes.pdf_1463495779.pdf
Mannes, S., & Foster, E. (2016). The good and the bad: How pre-trial publicity and race affect
perceptions of defendants. North American Journal of Psychology, 18(3), 441.
https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-472268217/the-good-and-the-bad-how-pre-
trial-publicity-and

6ESSAY
Robbennolt, J. K., & Hans, V. P. (2017). Tort Law and Commonsense Justice: Convergence and
Divergence. Ct. Rev., 53, 110. https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?
handle=hein.journals/ctrev53&div=31&id=&page=
Ruva, C. L. (2018). From the Headlines to the Jury Room: An Examination of the Impact of
Pretrial Publicity on Jurors and Juries. In Advances in Psychology and Law (pp. 1-39).
Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75859-6_1
Ruva, C. L., & Coy, A. E. (2019). Your bias is rubbing off on me: The impact of pretrial
publicity and jury type on guilt decisions, trial evidence interpretation, and impression
formation. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law.
https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/law0000220
Staggs, S. M. (2017). Evaluating the Effects of Pretrial Publicity on Mock-Jury Deliberations.
http://hdl.handle.net/10150/625459
Staggs, S. M., & Landreville, K. D. (2017). The impact of pretrial publicity on “eye for an eye”
retributivist support and malicious perceptions of criminal offenders. Mass
Communication and Society, 20(1), 116-135.
https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2016.1167917
Toobin, J. (2016). American heiress: The wild saga of the kidnapping, crimes and trial of Patty
Hearst. New York, NY, Penguin Random House, LLC. https://books.google.co.in/books?
id=LgH0DQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Toobin,+J.+(2016).
+American+heiress:+The+wild+saga+of+the+kidnapping,
+crimes+and+trial+of+Patty+Hearst.+New+York,+NY,+Penguin+Random+House,

7ESSAY
+LLC.&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjTzPHGxfPmAhXbwTgGHWtuCdAQ6AEIMTA
B#v=onepage&q&f=false
Vitriol, J. A., & Kovera, M. B. (2018). Exposure to capital voir dire may not increase convictions
despite increasing pretrial presumption of guilt. Law and human behavior, 42(5), 472.
https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/lhb0000304
Willmott, D., Boduszek, D., Debowska, A., & Woodfield, R. (2018). Introduction and validation
of the Juror Decision Scale (JDS): An empirical investigation of the Story
Model. Journal of Criminal Justice, 57, 26-34.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2018.03.004