Dateline: April, 2007, Issue 4
**previous research updates can be found in the Jury Research Kollectionn at www.kkcomcon.com
Is incriminating evidence more powerful when presented first or last during a trial?
Incriminating evidence can be presented first, in the middle, or last in a trial.
Costabile and Klein (2005) recently studied the timing of evidence presentation on juror verdicts in 4 separate experiments.
Incriminating evidence was more likely to lead to a guilty verdict when it was presented late in the trial than when it was presented early.
Evidence presented late in a trial was more likely to be remembered by jurors and thus more likely to influence jurors' verdicts, an effect found to be true for both admissible and inadmissible evidence.
Source: Costabile, K. A. & Klein, S. B. (2005). Finishing strong: Recency effects in juror judgments. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 27, pp. 47-58.
Ó 2005, ComCon KATHY KELLERMANN COMMUNICATION CONSULTING
LITIGATION, TRIAL & JURY CONSULTANT FIRM