Reaction of mock jurors to testimony of a court appointed expert

A study was conducted to assess the impact of court appointed experts on th e judgments of mock jurors. A civil proceeding was adopted for the experime nt. Mock jurors heard testimony about a plaintiffs injury in an automobile accident. In some conditions, medical testimony for the plaintiff and defen dant was provided by experts hired by each side. In other conditions, a med ical expert appointed by the court testified in addition to the two adversa rial experts. In one of these conditions, the court expert sided with the p laintiff; in another, the expert sided with the defendant. The plaintiff in the case was always an individual. The defendant was sometimes a corporati on and sometimes an individual. The results showed that mock jurors sided w ith the court appointed expert in every condition except when the expert fa vored a corporate defendant. The results were discussed in terms of heurist ic processing of persuasive information. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & So ns, Ltd.