The effect of evidence being ruled inadmissible By

The effect of evidence being ruled inadmissible By Pickel (1995)

Background • The law says that in order for evidence to be admissible in court, its relevance must outweigh its potential for prejudice. • Inadmissible evidence includes hearsay, past convictions and evidence obtained by illegal means. • If inadmissible evidence is presented in error by a witness, the judge will direct the jury to disregard what they have just heard. • However, by drawing their attention to it, it may be that the jury in fact pays even more attention to it. o This is known as reactance theory and suggests that jurors perceive instructions to ignore evidence as undermining their freedom to take all evidence into account.

Aim • To look at the role of the judge’s instructions when they were followed by a legal explanation. • To examine how much the credibility of the witness affects the juror’s ability to ignore inadmissible statements.

Procedure • 236 Ball State University students volunteering for course credit • Listened to audio recording of a mock trial involving theft o Critical evidence of prior conviction was “accidentally” introduced by a witness o Lawyer objected and judge gave ruling as admissible or inadmissible

Procedure IVs • Admissibility conditions o Ruled as admissible o Ruled as inadmissible followed by legal explanation of why evidence was inadmissible o Ruled as inadmissible with no legal explanation given o Control: no critical evidence of prior conviction DVs • Verdict – guilty or not guilty • Estimate of probability of defendant’s guilt • Rating of extent to which evidence of prior conviction causes belief in defendant’s guilt • Witness credibility o High credibility o Low credibility • Rating of credibility of witness

Results • The percentage of guilty verdicts by condition came out as follows (with 1 being the highest and 4 the lowest): o o Evidence ruled admissible Evidence ruled inadmissible with explanation Evidence ruled inadmissible without explanation Control

Results • Credibility of witness created a significant difference (sig level 0. 05) o High credibility: 58% guilty verdict o Low credibility: 44% guilty verdict

Conclusion • This research suggests that calling attention to inadmissible evidence does indeed make it more important to the jury • What does this say about lawyer’s objecting to evidence or testimony in court? Is this sometimes part of a strategy or technique?

Evaluation • Consider the following: S&W of lab experiment method Ethics of using this method to investigate jury behaviour Any problems with the sample Actors reading the transcripts in the audio tapes and effect on validity Realism of set-up Jury decision making being freewill or determined by series or social and situational processes o Research based on Western ideas of crime o Psychology as a science in way courtroom behaviour is being researched o o o

Tasks… • Develop a ‘tips’ hand out to advise prosecution and defence how to persuade a jury! Possible 10 marker What is the effect on a jury of evidence being ruled as inadmissible? Possible 15 marker: Evaluate the usefulness of research into persuading a jury