Dateline: February, 2007, Issue 1
**previous research updates can be found in the Jury Research Kollectionn at www.kkcomcon.com
Do juries reach different decisions than judges?
Many studies have been done over the years to determine if bench and jury trials yield similar or different results. Judges and juries often agree. For example:
----- In 1966, Kalven and Zeisel found that judges agreed with civil and criminal verdicts 78% of the time, and that judge-jury disagreements were only rarely caused by the complexity of the evidence.
----- In 1994, Heuer and Penrod asked judges in 67 civil trials to evaluate the performance of juries in cases of varying complexity. Again, judges and juries were in general agreement as to the appropriate verdict, and complexity of the trial did not differentiate between judges' and juries' preferred outcomes.
----- In 1999, Hans et al. reported that judges had quite favorable views of juries' performance in 153 civil trials, and once again judges did not think that complexity adversely affected jury performance.
----- In 2002, Robbennolt had 140 jurors and 87 judges read a narrative of a trial. Both judges and jurors awarded punitive damages of similar magnitude and variability.
----- In 1993, Vidmar and Rice compared veteran arbitrators, some of whom had been judges, with jurors who were awaiting jury service in a mock medical malpractice trial. The jurors and the arbitrators gave similar awards.
Recently, Viscusi (2002) reported on times when judges and jurors might disagree in their verdicts by examining the susceptibility of judges and jurors to biases in reasoning. Judges exhibited most of the same biases in reasoning as jurors, but to a lesser degree. For example:
----- In a narrative of a trial where a defendant was not truly negligent, jurors opted for punitive damages at rates ranging from 74% to 96% while judges did so at lower rates ranging from 18% to 69%.
----- In another narrative of a trial involving potential property damage that could have occurred (but did not), judges' awards were less affected by the potential (but non-existent) damage than jurors' awards.
Which reasoning biases did judges and jurors both evidence, though judges to a lesser degree, in Viscusi's research?
----- Judges evidenced less use of hindsight than jurors when making their decisions (i.e., less "Monday morning quarterbacking").
----- Fatality-rate estimates by judges were approximately one and a half to twice as accurate as jurors, especially for low-probability, high-consequence risks.
----- Jurors were three times as likely as judges to put an infinite value on life, suggesting that judges are less likely to exhibit a "zero-risk" mentality.
Viscusi concluded that judges exhibit the same biases as jurors when reasoning, but are more sensitive to details of the cases being judged, more coherent in their reasoning about probabilities, gains, and losses; and more accurate than jurors.
In sum, jurors and judges generally agree in their verdicts with judges exhibiting the same biases in reasoning as jurors, though to a lesser degree.
Source: Kalven, H. & Zeisel, H. (1966). The American jury. Boston: Little, Brown.
Source: Heuer, L. & Penrod, S. (1994). Trial complexity: A field investigation of its meaning and effects. Law and Human Behavior, 18, pp. 29-52.
Source: Hans, V. P., Hannaford, P. L., & Munsterman, G. T. (1999). The Arizona jury reform permitting civil jury discussions: The views of trial participants, judges, and jurors. The University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, 32, pp. 349-388.
Source: Robbennolt, J. K. (2002). Punitive damage decision-making: The decisions of citizens and trial court judges. Law and Human Behavior, 26, pp. 315-342.
Source: Vidmar, N. & Rice, J. J. (1993). Assessments of non-economic damage awards in medical malpractice negligence: A comparison of jurors with legal professionals. Iowa Law Review, 78, pp. 883-909.
Source: Viscusi, W. K. (2002). Do judges do better? In C. R. Sunstein, R. Hastie, J. W. Payne, D. A. Schkade, & W. K. Viscusi (Eds.), Punitive damages: How juries decide (pp.186-207). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
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