Juries

CSI Effect in Australia

At present there is an on going debate as to whether legal television dramas like CSI impact juror decision making.  There are many in academia who believe that they do not.  There are just as many practitioners who believe that they do.  I find myself somewhere in the middle leaning more towards the practitioners' side.  The difficulty of course with the debate is proving it one way or the other. 

The article below offers some evidence that CSI and other legal dramas are impacting jurors.  For example, the article cites a study where some Australian jurors when faced with difficult jury instructions "slipp[ed] into what they learn on television.''  In that same study, conducted by Psychologist Professor James Ogloff,  many Australian jurors referenced the famous holding of Miranda v. Arizona despite the fact that this American case has no application or relevance in the Australian criminal legal system nor was this case ever raised or discussed during trial.

The Age: US legal dramas confuse juries

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MA Judges May Ask Jurors About CSI Effect

While the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court may doubt the existence of the CSI Effect, it recently ruled in Commonwealth v. Perez that it was not an abuse of discretion for trial judges to pose CSI-related questions to potential jurors.

Boston Globe: Mass. high court OKs questions for jurors about 'CSI effect'

The state’s highest court has ruled that a judge was allowed to question potential jurors during jury selection about the “CSI effect” – whether they would expect prosecutors to produce scientific evidence to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Supreme Judicial Court, in an opinion written by Justice Fernande R.V. Duffly, rejected the claims by the defendant in an Essex County murder case that the questioning denied him his constitutional rights to a fair trial by an impartial jury.

The court said that while anecdotes have circulated and the media has reported on it, there is “little empirical evidence” supporting the theory that jurors who watch forensic science TV shows such as CBS-TV’s popular CSI franchise will hold prosecutors to an unreasonably high standard of proof.

But the court also said some jurisdictions allow judges to ask jurors about their views on forensic or scientific evidence. And the court noted a state appeals court decision upholding a conviction where a similar question was posed to jurors.

The high court said judges are allowed a large degree of discretion in the jury selection process and concluded that the trial judge had not abused his discretion and tilted the case toward the prosecution.

“The questions were tailored to ensure that seated jurors were capable of deciding the case without bias and based on the evidence,” the court said.

“The questions did not commit the jury to a verdict in advance and, as posed, did not have the effect of identifying and selecting jurors who were predisposed to convicting the defendant based on evidence the Commonwealth would present,” the court added.

The court also pointed out that the questions didn’t suggest to jurors that they were not allowed to consider a lack of scientific evidence when determining whether reasonable doubt existed.

At the request of prosecutors, the trial judge had asked potential jurors whether they believed “the Commonwealth is never able to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt unless it presents scientific evidence to corroborate witness testimony.” Thirty-eight people either said yes or “responded ambiguously.” Thirty-one of that 38 were excused from the jury...for more information about the CSI Effect go here.

 

CSI Effect and the Casey Anthony Jury

Did the "CSI" effect have an influence on the verdict in the Casey Anthony trial?

Programs such as "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," in which forensics play a key role in solving crimes in 60 minutes or less, are thought by many prosecutors and legal analysts to create unreasonable expectations for jurors deciding fates in the real world. Jurors, for the most part, have no legal training or real-life experience with the criminal justice system. They are without any frame of reference for how trials operate beyond what they see on television

Prosecutors have long argued that the "CSI" effect is real and creates unreasonable expectations in the minds of jurors. They maintain that the standards for obtaining a conviction these days have been raised because jurors now expect and want scientific evidence linking the defendant to the crime, especially in a circumstantial case...to continue reading go here.

CSI Voir Dire Question Leads to Mistrial (Charles and Drake v. MD)

In Jamal Charles and Dwayne Drake v. Maryland, the Maryland high court  (Court of Appeals) recently overturned the murder convictions of two defendants because of the following voir dire question posed by the trial judge:

...if you are currently of the opinion or belief that you cannot convict a defendant without "scientific evidence," regardless of the other evidence in the case and regardless of the instructions that I will give you as to the law, please rise...

While the trial judge most likely asked this question to address the growing concerns over whether CSI and other related television shows improperly influence jurors, the issue here was more about how the question was posed rather than its substance.  According to the Court of Appeals of Maryland:  "Our concern here is with the language of the question, rather than its object." 

In ordering a new trial for the defendants, the court held that "the trial judge abused his discretion by essentially instructing the jury to convict the defendants 'on the non-scientific evidence of the case'... the voir dire question at issue here suggested that the jury's only option was to convict, regardless of whether scientific evidence was adduced."