Document Type
Article
Date
1985
Keywords
access to courts|justice
Language
English
Disciplines
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Description/Abstract
This note empirically investigates how trial judges' expect tions for trial outcome might predict both (a) the judges' unintended verbal and nonverbal behavior, and (b) the verdicts returned by juries. This note also describes how trial judges' unintended verbal and nonverbal behavior might predict the verdicts returned by juries. Part I describes the relationship between judicial behavior or influence and due process and describes the type of extreme and subtle influence judges may exert on jurors and perhaps on their decision making process. The implication that this influence may have for a more complete description of procedural due process requirements for a fair and impartial trial, and for alerting appellate courts to the importance of the trial judge's behavior, is also discussed in light of present law. Part II presents a preliminary model for the study of judicial influence and discusses several factors that may serve to increase or decrease judicial influence in the courtroom. Part III de- scribes the research strategy used for testing aspects of this model, and part IV describes the findings of the research. The findings demonstrate how a trial judge's expectations for trial outcome can predict the manner in which the judge delivers in- structions to the jury and how these expectations may predict and possibly influence the outcome of jury trials. Finally, part V discusses a potentially useful way to describe the transmission of judicial influence or beliefs through judges' subtle verbal and nonverbal behaviors and examines the implications of our findings for developing standards of appellate review for assessing whether judges' verbal and nonverbal behaviors exceeded the permissible limits of influence. This part also discusses ways of alerting trial judges, jurors, and lawyers to the importance of nonverbal behavior in the courtroom.
Recommended Citation
Peter Blanck, Robert Rosenthal, & La Doris Hazzard Cordell
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
