Jury Deliberation: An Observation Study

An Experimental Study of Jury Deliberation

We study the e¤ects of deliberation on collective decisions. In a series of experiments, we vary groups’preference distributions (between common and con‡icting interests) and the institutions by which decisions are reached (simple majority, two-thirds majority, and unanimity). When deliberation is prohibited, di¤erent institutions generate signi…cantly di¤erent outcomes, tracking the theoretica...

The optimal jury size when jury deliberation follows a random walk (deliberation outcome is proportional to the initial ballot

The existing literature does not agree on the optimal jury size. We demonstrate that the probability of type I and type II errors is not sensitive to the number of jurors under the following three conditions: jurors receive independent signals about a defendant’s guilt during the evidence stage of the trial; the jurors truthfully reveal their signal before deliberations in the first ballot via ...

The effects of jury size and polling method on the process and product of jury deliberation.

The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly assumed the functional equivalence of different sized juries (at least in the range of 6- to 12-person groups). Several formal models of jury decision making predict that larger juries should hang more often, particularly for very close cases. Failures to confirm this prediction in several previous studies were attributed to inadequate sample sizes or to in...

An Experimental Study of Collective Deliberation

We study the e¤ects of deliberation on collective decisions. In a series of experiments, we vary groups’preference distributions (between common and con‡icting interests) and the institutions by which decisions are reached (simple majority, two-thirds majority, and unanimity). Without deliberation, di¤erent institutions generate signi…cantly di¤erent outcomes, tracking the theoretical comparati...

Norms of Deliberation: An Inductive Study