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abstract: A substantial amount of research has been dedicated to understanding how and why innocent people confess to crimes that they did not commit. Unfortunately, false confessions occur even with the best possible interrogation practices. This study aimed to examine how different types of false confession (voluntary, compliance, and internalization) and the use of jury instructions specific to confessions influences jurors’ verdicts. A sample of 414 participants read a criminal trial case summary that presented one of four reasons why the defendant falsely confessed followed by either the standard jury instruction for confessions or a clarified version. Afterwards, participants completed several items assessing the perceived guilt of the defendant, their attitudes on confessions in general, and their opinions on jury instructions. Although the three confession reasons did not differ among one another, jurors who were given no explanation for the false confession tended to more harshly judge the defendant. Further, the clarified jury instructions did not influence the participants’ judgments. Future research should focus on how expert witness testimonies affect verdicts regarding each type of false confession reason and whether the media may influence a juror’s knowledge of factors that could provoke false confessions. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Psychology 2017

A travers le système de l’intime conviction les Constituants consacrent un système de liberté de la preuve àl’opposé du système de preuve légale en vigueur sous l’Ancien Régime. L’intime conviction repose sur lacertitude morale des jurés et fait appel à leur conscience citoyenne et religieuse. A la sanction légale lesConstituants ont substitué une sanction morale. Face à l’émergence des preuves scientifiques au XIXème siècle, lesystème de l’intime conviction, remis en cause, continue néanmoins d’incarner le système de preuve le plus à apteà découvrir la vérité et à protéger la liberté individuelle. Au cours de la période contemporaine, la perted’indépendance des jurés vis-à-vis des magistrats professionnels d’une part et l’introduction d’une motivation desarrêts de la cour d’assises d’autre part questionnent à nouveau le système de l’intime conviction. La pérennité dusystème de l’intime conviction suppose un renforcement du poids décisionnel des jurés dans le jugement de lacour d’assises et une revalorisation de leur rôle au cours du procès pénal. L’exigence de motivation de laculpabilité des arrêts de la cour d’assises instaurée par la loi du 10 août 2011 sur la participation des citoyens aufonctionnement de la justice et le jugement des mineurs se révèle minimale. Au regard des exigences du droit auprocès équitable, il convient d’une part de renforcer la motivation de la culpabilité et d’étendre d’autre part lamotivation des arrêts de la cour d’assises à la peine prononcée. L’intégration des exigences du droit au procèséquitable en matière de motivation dans notre procédure pénale, constitue une chance pour le système de l’intimeconviction, ainsi appelé à se renouveler. / Through the system of the firm conviction, the constituents consecrate a system of freedom of the proof opposite to the system of legal proof applicable under the former regime. The firm conviction is based on the moral certitude of the jurors and involves their civic and religious consciousness. The constituents have substituted the legal sanction by a moral sanction. With the emergence of scientific proofs during the XIXth century, the system of firm conviction, although challenged, however continues to embody the proof system that is the most suitable to discover the truth and protect individual freedom. Over the contemporary period, the loss of independence of jurors towards professional judges on one end and the introduction of the requirement of reasoning for the judgement of assize courts on the other end again question the system of the firm conviction. The sustainability of the system of the firm conviction implies a strenthening to the decisional power of the jurors in the judgement of the assize court and a revalorisation of the role of the jurors during criminal trials. The requirement of the reasoning leading to guilt in the judgement of the assize court established by the law of the 10th August 2011 on the partcipation of the citizens to the functioning of Justice and judgement of minors proves to be insufficient. Regarding the legal requirements for a fair trial, it is necessary to reinforce on one end the reasoning leading to guilt and to extend on the other end the requirement of reasoning to the sentence pronounced by the assize court. The integration of the legal requirements for a fair trial regarding the reasoning in our criminal proceedings represents a chance for the system of the firm conviction which is thus called to renew itself.

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The recent societal development of highly specialized evidence has brought new problems to the forefront of the jury system. Because of the constitutional right to jury trials citizens of the United States and Florida have, it is imperative that the problems facing juries be discussed and explored. The question of whether or not juries can be trusted to comprehend highly technical evidence must be answered for the Florida jury to move forward into modern era. The subsequent question of what biases regarding highly specialized evidence have arisen must also be examined and addressed. Furthermore, solutions designed to increase a jury's comprehension and decrease their bias must be discussed and propagated. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the answers to those questions and provide potential solutions to the issues facing the modern Florida jury. Law journals, statutes, and case law all suggest that juror comprehension decreases substantially when faced with highly complex evidence. Biases are also commonly associated with these forms of evidence and are leading towards unfair verdicts. Despite these problems, there are solutions that are readily available in the areas of alternative dispute resolution. Further solutions may be created through a revision of the jury instruction process. This thesis seeks to raise awareness of the problems facing the Florida jury and contribute solutions that are practical and easily used.

Since its appearance in Europe, the trial by jury had to travel a long path until it became the official procedure to try criminal cases in the United States. Although it was not really created with that specific purpose, over the years it experienced memorable moments in which it was granted with the prestige and value required to be inserted in the Constitution of that country, as a safeguard against the arbitrariness of the governmental power. Today, however, the great importance that it had in the past has significantly decreased. The needs and practices of a system with a particularly high rate of convictions have relegated and transformed it into a real endangered specie. The following article describes and explains its birth and rise, as well as its subsequent virtual disappearance due to the not so efficient as dangerous guilty pleas. / Desde su aparición en Europa, el juicio por jurados tuvo que recorrer un largo camino para convertirse en el método oficial de juzgamiento de casos penales en los Estados Unidos. A pesar de que no fue creado exactamente con esa finalidad, tuvo varios momentos memorables durante su desarrollo que le otorgaron el prestigio y valor necesarios para insertarse en la Constitución de ese país como una garantía frente al abuso del poder. Hoy, sin embargo, la gran importancia que alguna vez tuvo ha quedado atrás. Las necesidades y prácticas propias de un sistema con una altísima tasa de condenas han terminado por relegarlo, convirtiéndolo en una verdadera especie en peligro de extinción. El siguiente artículo describe y explica el nacimiento y auge de los juicios por jurados para causas penales y su posterior virtual desaparición a manos de los no tan eficientes como peligrosos acuerdos negociados de condena.

In this thesis I combine the social network analysis approach with the traditional experimental approach to study the phenomena of jury decision-making. I examine whether with each trial a social network is formed. The jurors, the two teams of lawyers, as well as the accused and the judge, all form a social network with cliques and leaders. This division of individuals into specific cliques, along with the lawyers' performance in court, is hypothesized to have a significant impact on the jury's verdict. <br /><br /> Thus, by specifically studying the lawyers' engagement and disengagement on the jurors during a trial and the impact this has on the verdict, as well as understanding the structure of the social network that the individual jurors create, I hope to shed light on some of the influences that are key in delivering the verdict. In addition, this pioneering study may lead to significant policy changes in the future.

The jury selection process (also known as voir dire) has been examined previously in many ways, including racial impacts. Previous research suggests the need for more examination of how and if gender impacts the voir dire process. The lack of knowledge about how gender impacts voir dire might also have implications for public respect and trust in the court system. For example, theories of procedural justice suggest that individual experiences with the legal system affect whether they view the entire legal system as being legitimate. This is important because this perception then impacts how the public interact with the system. This research examines one main research question, how is gender salient in the voir dire process? To understand how gender impacts voir dire, including how attorneys and potential jurors communicate with each other, courtroom observations of the voir dire process were conducted. During these observations coding sheets were used focusing on types of questions asked by attorneys and reactions of the potential jurors and how gender affected this process. Over 150 interactions with potential jurors were examined. The results of these interactions focus on the use and misuse of gendered titles, gendered expectations, and repetition. It was found that gender is salient throughout the process and may impact how attorneys present the questions they ask and the information they give. The results of this research are applicable to jury selection/voir dire research and are important to better understanding how gender is seen and acted out in the courtroom.

The consequences of rape can be both psychologically and physically damaging to the victim. Unfortunately, it is all too frequently the case that attitudes against the victim in the form of acceptance of rape myths and other forms of victim-blaming serve merely to perpetuate these psychological consequences. This study looks at both the theoretical feminist and psychoanalytic perspectives that lay the groundwork for the foundations of Western culture’s inability to understand and empathize the female bodily condition in terms of rape and pregnancy, and the psychological effects that contribute to juror perceptions of rape victims and attitudes towards abortion. A study was run comparing a control trial transcript of a rape case, a transcript where the victim became pregnant, and one where she had an abortion as a result of her pregnancy, against responses to questions of rapist and victim-blame and empathy. The results were scattered, but overall there were significant differences in jurors perceptions of the rape, the victim, and the rapist that fluctuated as a result of pregnancy or abortion being admitted into evidence.

Past research has investigated the cross-race effect in the context of eyewitnesses and jury decision-making. The main goal of my thesis was to gain further insight into participants’ knowledge of the cross-race effect and how this impacted participants’ discrimination of same- and cross-race identifications. One hundred fifty-nine undergraduate students from UOIT viewed a series of showup identification videos. I found that participants were better able to discriminate accurate from inaccurate same-race identifications than cross-race identifications. However, participants believed White witnesses more and found them more credible than South Asian witnesses. Further research should investigate other conditions that influence people’s abilities to discriminate accurate from inaccurate eyewitness identifications. / UOIT