Opinion ID: 1407576
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: overview of conviction-proneness studies

Text: The expert witnesses called on behalf of the defense testified that the studies convincingly established a strong correlation between the tendencies of jurors to vote for conviction and juror attitudes toward capital punishment. Dr. Zeisel noted the almost monotony of the results [which are] obviously the same whether you take the experiment at Sperry-Rand in New York or students in Atlanta or jurors in Chicago or Brooklyn or eligible jurors here in [California]; it comes always out the same way.... And since all of the studies show the same result, no matter with whom, no matter with what stimulus, no matter with what closeness of simulation, there is really only one conclusion that we can come to. The relationship is so robust  and this is a term of art among scientists  that no matter how strongly or how weakly you try to discover it in terms of your experimental design, it will come through. Drs. Ellsworth and Girsh reached similar conclusions. Ellsworth amplified her testimony by using a statistical technique that yields a single overall significance level for the combined results of the five conviction-proneness studies which had preceded hers. Combining the results from Jurow's case I with the other four studies produced an overall significance level of less than .00001 (i.e., a probability of less than 1 in 100,000 that the combined results of those studies could have been achieved through chance alone.) [79] Using the results from Jurow's case II, the overall significance level was less than.0005 (i.e., less than 1 in 2,000). Indeed, when Ellsworth combined only the Jurow and Harris 1971 studies, which differentiated their subjects' views on capital punishment by use of questions based on the Witherspoon decision, she found that the overall significance level was less than .04 using Jurow case I and less than .009 using Jurow case II. The prosecution has not sought either at the hearing below or in its briefs to adduce evidence that there is no correlation between conviction-proneness and attitudes toward capital punishment. [80] Rather, the main thrust of its position has been to attack the methodology of the studies relied upon by petitioner and to question the propriety of generalizing from the results of those studies to the constitutional conclusions which petitioner must prove. As the most significant critiques apply to virtually all of the studies, they will be discussed in the next section of this opinion. For present purposes, it should be noted that the prosecution did call two expert witnesses at the hearing below to raise methodological criticisms of some of the studies. The primary expert for the prosecution, Dr. Thomas Haines, discussed the Goldberg, Jurow, Harris 1971, and Ellsworth Conviction-Proneness studies. He concluded his direct examination by testifying that there is a tendency or direction indicated here [i.e., in the studies] but that if this is in fact the sum total of the data to present the argument, I would have to say that it is definitely very tentative and fragmentary.... He later explained that basically my criticism is that [the studies in their written form] do not give me enough information as to the procedures used. He had not been present for nor given a transcript of the testimony of the defense experts at the evidentiary hearing, and he conceded that this testimony could have answered the methodological concerns he raised. Haines did note that the various studies all point in the same direction.... There is some relationship, apparently. He agreed that as the stud[ies] get methodologically better the effect that they are finding doesn't go away.... [T]he better study [e.g., the Ellsworth Conviction-Proneness Study ] is not producing a weaker finding.... The second expert witness called by the prosecution was Dr. Gerald Shure, who discussed only one of the conviction-proneness studies, Ellsworth's. As to this study, he stated that the evidence presented suggests that in fact a death-qualified juror is likely to be more biased in certain respects [particularly] [a]t the level of attitudes.... [81] He felt that the study could not predict ... the actual behavior of jurors in specific cases. ... (Italics added.) That, of course, is not the issue. (Cf., ante, fn. 57.)