How Juries Decide with Mikaela Spruill
Mikaela Spruill studies juries and the legal system’s role in sustaining social inequalities. She’s a postdoctoral fellow in criminal justice with SPARQ at Stanford University. In our conversation, Mikaela shares the benefits and drawbacks of juries in the courtroom, how scientists study jury decision-making, and how jurors apply very specific legal standards to interpreting the facts of a case. Things that come up in this episode A very brief history of juries (Alschuler & Deiss, 1994 ; Carey, 1994 ; Massachusetts Office of Jury Commissioner ) A summary of early research in jury decision-making (Devine et al., 2001 ) and the University of Chicago Jury Project (Broeder, 1959 ; Cornwell, 2010 ) The quick clip in the intro (“I’m just saying a coincidence is possible”) is from the 1957 film, 12 Angry Men. A summary of research on jury decision-making (Spruill & Hans, in press ) How jurors apply the “objectively reasonable” standard to interpreting the facts of a case (Spruill & Lewis, 2022 ; 2023 ) For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/ Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.