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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
The American Criminal Jury, Nancy J. King
The American Criminal Jury, Nancy J. King
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
As juries become both less common and more expensive, some have questioned the wisdom of preserving the criminal jury in its present form. The benefits of the jury are difficult to quantify, but jury verdicts continue to earn widespread acceptance by the public and trial by jury remains a cherished right of most Americans. In any event, many basic features of the criminal jury in the United States cannot be modified without either constitutional amendment or radical reinterpretations of the Bill of Rights. Judges and legislators continue to tinker within constitutional confines, some hoping to improve the jury trial by …
The Defendant And The Criminal Trial : Does Providing Knowledge About The Criminal Justice System Help?, Daniel B. Hurley
The Defendant And The Criminal Trial : Does Providing Knowledge About The Criminal Justice System Help?, Daniel B. Hurley
Theses : Honours
Defendants are required to make many decisions during their encounter with the criminal justice system (i.e., plea, venue, representation, bail and, possibly, appeal). The assumption exists that defendants possess sufficient organizational and pragmatic knowledge of the system to make these decisions. However, research suggests that many defendants lack sufficient knowledge of the criminal justice system to make these decisions, and that this lack of knowledge may lead to feelings of anxiety. As a consequence of these findings, many defendants may be unable to effectively participate in the criminal justice system. By way of remedying this situation, it has been argued …
Effects Of Joint Trials On The Proportion Of Guilty Verdicts Assigned To Defendants, Stacy Lyn Gall
Effects Of Joint Trials On The Proportion Of Guilty Verdicts Assigned To Defendants, Stacy Lyn Gall
Theses: Doctorates and Masters
When two or more people are alleged to have committed a crime together they are automatically tried together in a joint trial. Defendants can apply to have a joint trial severed into separate trials, but they are rarely granted. However, joint trials might be biasing against defendants in that they might have a greater likelihood of obtaining aguilty verdict than if they had separate trials. A review of the literature indicated that authors have several hypotheses why joint trials might be biasing, though there is no conclusive evidence that this is the case. This study used a mock juror paradigm …