Law and Human Behavior · 1990 · 271 citations · 17 references
Social SciencesCriminologyPsychologyExperimental DesignExperimental PsychologyForensic PsychologyCourt TestimonyEyewitness TestimonyForensic EvidenceJury Decision-makingJury TrialWitness TestimonyEyewitness Testimony EvaluationIdentificationJuror MemoryMemory Retention IntervalMistaken Eyewitness IdentificationRetention Interval Effects
The study examined juror sensitivity to eyewitness identification evidence. 129 eligible jurors viewed a videotaped trial with 10 manipulated factors, and results were combined with a prior undergraduate study using the same stimuli. Eyewitness confidence was the strongest predictor of verdicts, and sensitivity differences between undergraduates and eligible jurors were negligible.
A mock-jury study was conducted to examine juror sensitivity to eyewitness identification evidence. Subjects were 129 eligible and experienced jurors from Dane County, Wisconsin, who viewed a videotaped trial that involved an eyewitness identification. Ten factors associated with the crime and the identification (e.g., disguise of the perpetrator, retention interval, confidence of the witness) were manipulated. The results of this mock-jury study were combined with those of a previous study using the same experimental stimuli and procedures, but using undergraduates as subjects. This analysis showed that the confidence of the eyewitness was the most powerful predictor of verdicts (p<.05) and that differences between undergraduates and eligible jurors in their sensitivity to eyewitness evidence were negligible.
17