Objectives

The New Jersey Supreme Court in New Jersey v. Henderson (2011) proposed judicial instructions designed to assist juries in evaluating eyewitness evidence. The current work examines the impact of the Henderson instructions on deliberating jurors, and whether the jury deliberation process helps jurors use the Henderson instructions to evaluate eyewitness evidence.

Methods

Seventy-nine juries composed of five to nine jurors each viewed a re-enacted criminal attempted rape trial in which the quality of the eyewitness variables (both system and estimator variables) and the presence of judicial instructions were manipulated.

Results

The Henderson instructions did not impact the deliberating jurors’ verdicts or the jury verdicts. Juries displayed sensitivity to the quality of system variables (e.g., unbiased instructions), rendering more guilty verdicts when the quality of system variables was good, and more acquittals when the quality of system variables was poor. For estimator variables (e.g., presence of a weapon), the observed pattern was in the opposite direction. Jurors discussed both system and estimator variables during deliberations more often when their quality was poor.

Conclusions

The results indicate the importance of examining jurors’ sensitivity to eyewitness evidence at the jury level, and that the Henderson instructions do not aide/improve jury deliberations in cases involving eyewitness evidence.

中文翻译：

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法庭上的目击者：对亨德森指令影响的陪审团级实验检查

目标

新泽西州最高法院在新泽西州诉亨德森案 (2011) 中提出了旨在协助陪审团评估目击者证据的司法指示。目前的工作考察了亨德森指令对审议陪审员的影响，以及陪审团审议过程是否有助于陪审员使用亨德森指令评估目击证人的证据。

方法

由 5 到 9 名陪审员组成的 79 个陪审团每个人都观看了重新制定的刑事强奸未遂审判，其中目击者变量（系统和估计变量）的质量和司法指示的存在被操纵。

结果

亨德森的指示不影响审议陪审员的裁决或陪审团的裁决。陪审团对系统变量的质量表现出敏感（例如，无偏见的指令），当系统变量的质量好时作出更多的有罪判决，当系统变量的质量差时作出更多的无罪判决。对于估计变量（例如，武器的存在），观察到的模式是相反的方向。当他们的质量很差时，陪审员在审议期间更频繁地讨论系统和估计变量。

结论

结果表明在陪审团层面检查陪审员对目击证人证据的敏感性的重要性，并且亨德森的指示不会帮助/改进涉及目击证人证据的案件的陪审团审议。