For years, legal psychologists have explored whether demographic, personality, or attitudinal characteristics predict juror verdicts with mixed results.  In our laboratory, we are moving past these preliminary investigations to determine whether social psychological processes influence how and when these characteristics influence verdicts. 

Biased Hypothesis Testing and Behavioral Confirmation in Voir Dire

For example, we have explored whether psychological tendencies to seek hypothesis confirming information result in voir dire questions that elicit poor information from jurors and whether attorneys under or overvalue the information they receive from jurors when making their jury selection decisions (Steighner & Kovera, APLS, 2004).  We just received funding for four studies that will extend our research on whether attorneys' engage in biased hypothesis testing during voir dire, whether jurors behaviorally confirm attorneys' expectations about the jurors' characteristics, and whether jurors' confirmation of attorneys' expectations produces cognitive dissonance and consequently causes them to alter their decisions at trial to reduce the dissonance.  This research is funded by the National Science Foundation (SES #0520617).

Steighner, N., & Kovera, M. B. (2004, March). Biased hypothesis testing during traditional attorney voir dire. In M. B. Kovera & L. M. Levett (Co-chairs), New directions in jury selection and trial consulting research. Symposium presented at the meetings of the American Psychology-Law Society, Scottsdale, AZ. 

Repeated Attitude Expression in Voir Dire

We are also interested in whether attorneys' litigation strategies to increase the accessibility of particular attitudes (e.g., eyewitnesses are unreliable) by repetitively addressing the attitude during voir dire actually increases the attitude-verdict correlation.  Erin Danielsen conducted this research for her master's thesis. 

Danielsen, E., & Kovera, M. B.  (2005, March).  The role of repeated attitudinal expressions in predicting juror behavior.  Paper presented at the meetings of the American Psychology-Law Society, La Jolla, CA. 

Jury Composition and Juror Decision Making after Juvenile Waiver Voir Dire

Finally, we are exploring whether the voir dire process used to select jurors in cases in which juveniles are tried in adult court biases jurors against juvenile defendants using archival, survey, and trial simulation methods.  In the archival research, we explored whether voir dire in juvenile waiver cases (i.e., cases in which juveniles are waived from the juvenile justice system to adult court) share features with voir dire conducted in capital cases.  We found that similar to capital voir dire, the voir dire in cases in which juveniles are tried as adults contained questions that ask potential jurors whether they could find the defendant guilty knowing that he could spend time in adult prison (Danielsen, Levett, & Kovera, 2004).  I

n the survey research, we are investigating whether there are demographic characteristics that covary with attitudes about the juvenile waiver process.  Toward this end, we developed a scale to assess jurors' attitudes toward trying juveniles as adults and established the scale's reliability and its convergent, divergent, and predictive validity.  Across several studies, we have found that black respondents are far less likely to support juvenile waiver than respondents from other races, increasing the likelihood that they will be excused from jury duty in these cases (Crocker, Levett, & Kovera, 2006; Levett, Danielsen, & Kovera, 2003, 2004a; 2004b). 

To examine the influence of jury composition on jury decision making, we conducted a trial simulation in which we manipulated whether juries were comprised only of jurors who would be seated in juvenile waiver cases (juvenile qualified jurors) or contained both juvenile qualified jurors and those who would likely be excluded from jury service given their opposition to the practice of juvenile waiver (non-juvenile qualified jurors).  Juries watched a videotape that simulated the trial of a juvenile defendant who was tried in adult court for first-degree murder.  Not surprisingly, juvenile qualified juries were more likely to convict the defendant than were juries that had mixed attitudes toward juvenile waiver. Juries with mixed attitudes deliberated for longer periods of time and were more likely to hang than juvenile qualified juries (Levett, Greathouse, Sothmann, Copple, & Kovera, 2006).  We are currently coding the content of the jury deliberations to assess whether the quality of the deliberation differed as a function of the attitudinal composition of the jury. 

Finally, we conducted a series of studies to explore whether exposure to a voir dire in which jurors are asked questions about their attitudes toward juvenile waiver influences jurors' pretrial beliefs about defendant guilt and whether this influence persists after the presentation of trial evidence.  Exposure to juvenile voir dire cause juvenile qualified jurors to hold pretrial beliefs that are prejudicial toward juvenile defendants.  Jurors who watched a juvenile voir dire were more likely to believe that the defendant was guilty and that the judge and both attorneys believed that the defendant was guilty than were jurors who watched a standard voir dire.  In a second study, jurors who watched the juvenile voir dire were 1.5 times more likely to convict the juvenile defendant than were jurors who watched a standard voir dire.  These findings suggest that mere exposure to the types of questions that are unique to voir dire in cases in which juveniles are tried as adults increase the likelihood that juveniles will be convicted. 

This research was funded by the National Science Foundation (SES# 0136652). 

Crocker, C. B., Levett, L. M., & Kovera, M. B.  (2006, March).  The predictive validity of the Juvenile Waiver Scale and its generalizability across participant groups.  Paper presented at the meetings of the American Psychology-Law Society, St. Petersburg, FL. 

Greathouse, S. M., Levett, L. M., & Kovera, M. B.  (2006, March).  The effects of voir dire on juror decisions in juvenile waiver cases.  Paper presented at the meetings of the American Psychology-Law Society, St. Petersburg, FL. 

Levett, L. M., Greathouse, S. M., Sothmann, F. C., Copple, R., & Kovera, M. B.  (2006, March).  When juveniles are tried as adults: Does the juvenile qualification process result in a biased jury?  In E. Brank & L. M. Levett (Co-chairs), Players in the juvenile justice puzzle: From public sentiment to putting it into practice.  Symposium presented at the meetings of the American Psychology-Law Society, St. Petersburg, FL. 

Sothmann, F. C., Rosenthal, M., Greathouse, S. M., Levett, L. M., & Kovera, M. B.  (2006, March).  Effects of voir dire questions on a juvenile waiver case.  Paper presented at the meetings of the American Psychology-Law Society, St. Petersburg, FL. 

Levett, L. M., Greathouse, S. M., & Kovera, M. B.  (2005, November).  Racial differences in attitude toward juvenile waiver to adult court: A meta-analysis.  Paper presented at the meetings of the American Society of Criminology, Toronto, Ontario. 

Levett, L. M., & Kovera, M. B.  (2005, March).  Do attitudes toward juvenile waiver affect juror decisions? An evaluation of the Juvenile Waiver Scale.  Paper presented at the meetings of the American Psychology-Law Society, La Jolla, CA. 

Danielsen, E., Levett, L. M., & Kovera, M. B. (2004, March). When juveniles are tried as adults: What happens during voir dire? Paper presented at the meetings of the American Psychology-Law Society, Scottsdale, AZ.

Levett, L. M., Danielsen, E., & Kovera, M. B. (2004, March). Assessing the convergent and discriminant validity of the juvenile waiver scale. Paper presented at the meetings of the American Psychology-Law Society, Scottsdale, AZ. 

Levett, L. M., Danielsen, E., & Kovera, M. B. (2004, March). The predictive validity of the juvenile waiver scale. In M. B. Kovera & L. M. Levett (Co-chairs), New directions in jury selection and trial consulting research. Symposium presented at the meetings of the American Psychology-Law Society, Scottsdale, AZ.