Jury Selection

Persuasion in Jury Selection

In jury trials, the lawyers begin each case with the process of selecting the jurors. In theory, these jurors are supposed to be representative of the larger community, much like a good, random sample in an experiment. The lawyers are allowed to question each juror, in an attempt to remove any individuals who might possess personal bias against either side. Once again, theoretically, this seems like a pragmatic approach for justice. However, it should be obvious, by the mere fact that there is a whole career field for psychologists as jury selection advisors, that some sort of abuse is occurring within the process. Perhaps more than any other area of Psychology, the Social realm emphasizes the vulnerability of the human mind to outside influences. Add to this natural predisposition in susceptibility of thought the persuasive appeal of an authority figure like a lawyer and it is seems highly probable that some sort of effect will manifest itself in the jurors’ decisions.

Lawyers freely admit that for them, the success of their voir dire performance and the outcome of the selection process, is the most important determinant of a ruling in their client’s favor, throughout the entire proceedings. Their voir dire allotment of time provides them with an opportunity to not only begin their case presentation to the jury, but also to use it as an opportunity for persuasion. One recorded study that surveyed a large range of jury selection, found that lawyers spent only around twenty-percent of their given time in attempts to identify and remove potentially biased jurors. The majority of their efforts and time remarking on “points of law, warning the panel about weaknesses in the case, and generally ingratiating themselves with the jurors.”

A particular technique utilized, that of specific word choice within loaded questions, is interestingly enough, a factor in psychological research as well. Whereas in psychology, it is considered a problematic issue for areas like interview and survey research, in the courtroom voir dire, it is seen as an effective tool in evoking target beliefs in the panel audience. The questions are designed to elicit attitudes and values that the lawyer expects to be helpful in how the jurors interpret the facts of the case.

In the trial context, persuasion is the structuring of a lawyer’s legal arguments in a way likely to cause the jury to make a ruling in the best interest of his client. Because their fundamental objective is, of course, victory, lawyers have developed these impressively complex persuasive strategies in order to maximize their influence over the jury. As is found in the textbook, peoples’ behavior is most influenced by the social situation in which they find themselves, not their personalities or other individual differences. Voir dire, through intentionally directed questioning, provides lawyers the chance to persuasively influence peoples’ attitudes and beliefs.

All of this established, the persuasive speech utilized during the critical jury selection portion of the court proceedings, seems like an extremely well suited situation for testing a proposition regarding persuasion as a variable. If a group of jurors are exposed to persuasive rhetoric, without the aid of forewarning, their votes will reflect a distinctly different voting pattern than their peers in the other juror panel where no such persuasion was experienced. In order to control for possible skews, the two groups will be taken from