{"id":2824,"date":"2020-10-13T14:20:49","date_gmt":"2020-10-13T18:20:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.law.temple.edu\/aer\/?p=2824"},"modified":"2021-12-16T14:56:32","modified_gmt":"2021-12-16T14:56:32","slug":"brain-lessons-peremptories-and-personality-traits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.temple.edu\/aer\/2020\/10\/13\/brain-lessons-peremptories-and-personality-traits\/","title":{"rendered":"BRAIN LESSONS: PEREMPTORIES AND PERSONALITY TRAITS"},"content":{"rendered":"

In every basic trial advocacy class I teach, I always read my students a snippet of jury selection advice from the renowned Clarence Darrow.\u00a0 At the time he authored this advice, it was \u201cstate-of-the-art.\u201d\u00a0 However, as soon as I start reading it to them, my students will scoff, laugh, or gape in shock. Says Darrow,\u00a0 \u201cThe Englishman is not so good as an Irishman\u2026The German is not so keen about individual rights except where they concern his own way of life\u2026Beware of the Lutherans, especially the Scandinavians…\u201d[1]<\/a> Darrow goes on and on like that, fumbling over all kinds of ethnic and religious stereotypes.\u00a0 It gives me the chance to remind my students how far we have come in ensuring the right to a trial by a jury of one\u2019s peers, and to stop and think for a moment about where we need to go.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, our laws continue to adjust against such prejudices in jury selection.\u00a0 Unlike Darrow\u2019s time at the bar, modern jury selection tactics are increasingly backed by experimental science.\u00a0 Which brings me to an article Jules sent me recently which undertakes an experimental question on jury selection and a normative question about using peremptory strikes based on personality traits the attorney perceives.[2]<\/a>\u00a0 There is a lot of information in this article as it deals with the ethical, technical, and experimental.\u00a0 For brevity\u2019s sake, I\u2019ll confine this post to the latter\u2014an age-old voir dire question of introverted jurors versus extraverted jurors, narrowly positioned around receptivity to expert opinions.\u00a0 The experiments here are quite detailed, so I\u2019ll do my best to summarize them in such a short space.<\/p>\n

The authors sought to discover what persuasive affects an expert with high or low credibility and high or low confidence had on introverted and extraverted jurors.\u00a0 The practical question should be clear here:\u00a0 If my case hangs on an expert or two, should I use peremptory strikes to craft a pool of introverted or extraverted jurors who tend to find an expert like mine more persuasive?\u00a0 Before we get to how the introverts and extraverts fared, it\u2019s worth talking a bit about expert credibility and expert testimonial confidence as those terms are pregnant with meaning in these experiments and recur frequently below.<\/p>\n

An expert can seem more or less credible for any number of reasons ranging from dress, to demeanor, to diplomas.\u00a0 As to their opinions, an expert can display varying degrees of caution or confidence.\u00a0 It is within these two categorical ranges that the experiments took place. The authors conducted two experiments.\u00a0 In the first, the authors did not change the projected testimonial confidence levels of the experts but they did in the second experiment, creating three categories of expert confidence: low, medium, and high.\u00a0\u00a0 Participants watched an expert in psychology testify about the violence risk of a defendant convicted of capital murder then made a sentencing decision based on the expert\u2019s recommendation.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

Both introverts and extraverts were largely unmoved by low-credibility experts, even if the expert displayed high confidence.\u00a0 On the opposite side of the credibility spectrum, both introverts and extraverts were more likely to vote for the death penalty if the expert was high credibility and high confidence. \u00a0None of that probably seems all that surprising to you. \u00a0Here is where it gets interesting: Introverts were significantly more likely to vote for the death penalty with a high-credibility, low-confidence<\/em><\/strong> expert, whereas the high-credibility, low-confidence experts barely moved the needle for the extraverts.[4]<\/a> \u00a0For the extraverts, a high-credibility, low-confidence expert was hardly more persuasive to them than the low-credibility experts who couldn\u2019t seem to generate voting enthusiasm in either<\/em> group.[5]<\/a> If an extravert thought an expert lacked confidence, they were more likely to also indicate that that expert lacked credibility.[6]<\/a>\u00a0 In fact, for the most extraverted jurors, a high-confidence, high-credibility expert produced a \u201cmultiplicative effect\u201d on the chance of a death penalty vote.[7]<\/a>\u00a0 For the introverts, however, as long as the expert\u2019s credibility was high, it did not matter<\/em><\/strong> if the expert\u2019s testimonial confidence was low, medium, or high\u2014they were more likely to vote for the death penalty and were even more likely to vote for it than their extraverted peers who saw their expert as both high credibility and high confidence.[8]<\/a><\/p>\n

You might want to read that last paragraph again.\u00a0 Speaking for myself, the repetitious terminology took a few swallows for me to properly digest. \u00a0I don\u2019t recommend spending any time at all in Darrow\u2019s essay from 1936.\u00a0 You won\u2019t even get it across your palate.<\/p>\n

I have to give special thanks again to Nathan Wilson, a rising 3L at UNC and the Publications Editor of their law review, who has helped out three times now with my Bluebook citation formatting for this blog.\u00a0 I just hate doing them and Nathan has been such a cheerful helper, even though he isn\u2019t my student.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

[1]<\/a> Clarence Darrow, Attorney for the Defense, <\/em>Esquire, May, 1936 at 36 reprinted in <\/em>James W. Jeans, Sr., Trial Advocacy 277-278 (2d ed. 1993).<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Erik J. Girvan et al., The Propriety of Peremptory Challenges for Perceived Personality Traits<\/em>, 37 L. & Pysch. Rev. 49 (2013).<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> I am simplifying the experimental procedures here for space.\u00a0 The authors employed a number of experimental devices and necessary controls, such as controlling for a participant\u2019s opinion about the death penalty.\u00a0 Obviously, in order to determine a participant\u2019s introversion or extraversion, each participant was tested and then categorized based on scientifically accepted criteria.\u00a0\u00a0 See Id. <\/em>at 63-65.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Id. <\/em>at 66.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Id.<\/em><\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Id. <\/em>at 66-67.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Id. <\/em>at 69.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Id. <\/em>at 70.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In every basic trial advocacy class I teach, I always read my students a snippet of jury selection advice from the renowned Clarence Darrow.\u00a0 At the time he authored this advice, it was \u201cstate-of-the-art.\u201d\u00a0 However, as soon as I start reading it to them, my students will scoff, laugh, or gape in shock. Says Darrow,\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"coauthors":[203],"class_list":["post-2824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brain-lessons"],"yoast_head":"\nBRAIN LESSONS: PEREMPTORIES AND PERSONALITY TRAITS - Advocacy and Evidence Resources<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/law.temple.edu\/aer\/2020\/10\/13\/brain-lessons-peremptories-and-personality-traits\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"BRAIN LESSONS: PEREMPTORIES AND PERSONALITY TRAITS - Advocacy and Evidence Resources\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In every basic trial advocacy class I teach, I always read my students a snippet of jury selection advice from the renowned Clarence Darrow.\u00a0 At the time he authored this advice, it was \u201cstate-of-the-art.\u201d\u00a0 However, as soon as I start reading it to them, my students will scoff, laugh, or gape in shock. 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