Also working with funding from NSF's Law and Social Sciences Program, St. Louis University's Richard Wiener studies jurors' legal understanding in capital cases. He finds that jurors, even highly educated ones, don't understand the procedures they are supposed to follow or the legal terms used by judges in their instructions. For example, legally, an aggravating circumstance is one that makes people more worthy of the death sentence, while a mitigating one makes that person less worthy. To make the process easier for jurors, Wiener is studying different ways of giving instructions, including the use of flow charts showing jurors the order they are supposed to follow when evaluating information, and an explanation of common errors that jurors make in interpreting the law. The death decision is a complicated one.
Jurisdictions differ in the wording and timing of jury instruction.
But the legal community needs to be more flexible if it wants accurate decisions. Change comes slowly in the judicial system, as it should, says NSF's Hosch. We wouldn't want a legal system that responded to every new fad. But as data accumulate, Hosch hopes that jurors and the court system will eventually benefit from the social science research now underway. October 1997 Let us know what you think about Frontiers.