Abstract
As ordinary citizens, jurors bring to court a diversity of emotions and views about crime, punishment and terrorism. Participation in deliberation reduced individual conviction rates, but the change did not vary significantly according to mock jurors’ demographic characteristics or attitudinal dispositions. Mock jurors who were most fearful of terrorism and most readily aroused to anger by evidence of the alleged terrorist conduct, were the most susceptible to change their views following deliberation. On balance, the findings regarding the influence of deliberation showed that this aspect of a criminal trial can have an impact on mock jurors from all backgrounds, and on their decisions to convict. Deliberation may have a more powerful effect on women, on people who are more readily emotionally aroused or on those who are more fearful of terrorism. But, there was no evidence that some jurors were so incorrigible that lawyers should try to exclude them from serving on juries.
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Tait, D., Goodman-Delahunty, J. (2017). The Effect of Deliberation on Jury Verdicts. In: Tait, D., Goodman-Delahunty, J. (eds) Juries, Science and Popular Culture in the Age of Terror. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55475-8_13
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