By Pickel (1995)

• 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.

• 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.

• 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

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

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

• Credibility of witness created a significant difference (sig level 0.05) o High credibility: 58% guilty verdict o Low credibility: 44% guilty verdict

• 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?

• Consider the following: o S&W of lab experiment method o Ethics of using this method to investigate jury behaviour o Any problems with the sample o Actors reading the transcripts in the audio tapes and effect on validity o Realism of set-up o 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

• 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