Wk 4 - Judges and Juries

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Liberty University *

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640

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Law

Date

Jan 9, 2024

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docx

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2

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In this, the fourth week of Psychology and the Legal System, we'll take a look at jury selection and juries and judges as decision-makers. The jury is the cornerstone of the US criminal justice system. The construction of the jury and its duties are weighed so heavily that many of the amendments of the Constitution address juries. The Fifth Amendment addresses grand juries. The Sixth Amendment ensures the accused to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury. The Seventh Amendment preserves the right to a jury trial in civil cases. The process of jury selection is really a process of excluding people whom the attorneys do not want to serve. A jury pool is formed, usually from voter registration records and sometimes government service lists or driver's license records. These selection practices partially explain why certain groups, such as poor people or people who move frequently, are under-represented. Next, a random sample is chosen from the jury pool and this group comprises the veneer. Some people who are called for possible jury service do not show up at court, may be legally exempt, or have special excuses, all of which caused the pool to further shrink. Finally, the attorneys question potential jurors During Bois deer, and based on the answers given, more of them may be excluded. Attorneys may dismiss a juror through a challenge, either for cause or peremptory. Attorneys do not need a reason for their peremptory challenges, so these are limited. However, per Batson v. Kentucky 1986, attorneys may not dismiss jurors simply because they belong to some recognizable group. Defense attorneys make more peremptory challenges because the trial outcome may result in a lengthy prison sentence or enlarge damage payment in a civil suit. The jury process is the cornerstone of legal decision-making in the United States. As one of the most studied areas in psychology and law. There's a plethora of research showing juror decisions are influenced by many contributing factors, including such things as a defendant, victim, and juror demographics, personality traits of jurors, judges' instructions, and so forth. Among one of the more researched areas regarding extra LIGO contributing factors to juror decisions is pre-trial publicity, which tends to be pro-prosecution. It has been argued that jurors can confuse what they have learned via pre-trial publicity with actual evidence presented at trial. Thus making it very difficult for jurors to disregard, even when the judge admonishes the jury to ignore it. Emotional pre-trial publicity, such as the college co-ed murdered on the evening of her wedding, appears to have a bigger impact on decisions than factual information, such as the murder weapons retrieval. One reason may be that effective emotional information persists longer than the effect of factual information. A change of venue or postponing the trial may be required to mitigate the influence of emotional information. Juries are not bound to explain how they came to their decisions. They will sometimes refer to their moral conscience rather than to the law in deciding a case if they feel the law would result in an unjust outcome. The result may be jury nullification. Jury nullification is more likely when juries have been notified of their nullification powers. A different interpretation of disregard for the law is that juries do not understand the relevant law. Much recent research has examined juror instructions and the amount of legal terminology included in these instructions. Some states have actually changed their legal terminology so jurors can better understand the legal decision-making process. For example, the Judicial Council of California has adopted award- winning plain language civil and criminal jury instructions that accurately convey the law using language understandable to jurors.
The famous passage in Matthew 7:1-3 states, “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” (ESV, 2016). These words spoken by Jesus and found in the New Testament take a seemingly different tone. Airway is found in the Old Testament, setting up individuals to judge between men on various matters. Additionally, Romans 13 speaks of authorities or governments perhaps avenging, for he does not bear the sword in vain. This conjures notions of personal and maybe swift judgment of others. How, then, do we reconcile these two ideas? Perhaps it is obvious to you that an outside observer can more easily judge men's actions. Someone may go speeding past you on the interstate as though you are standing still. That person is obviously breaking the law that says you must not exceed the posted limit of 70 miles per hour. That is a judgment of the slower driver and the police officer who pulls them over two miles down the road. However, we cannot judge the motivation behind breaking that law as the individual trying to get his laboring wife to the hospital before an unborn but very ready child is born in the backseat. Was the individual a service member, working for the military as a courier, and tasked with transporting someone or something to a designated destination in a certain amount of time? Or was the individual breaking the law because they thought it would be fun to see what would happen? All of these reasons are plausible. Only God can judge the true intentions and motivations of the heart.
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