Evaluating the comprehensibility of jury instructions: A method and an example

Methodological problems in jury simulation research involve issues of sampl ing, choice of stimulus materials, appropriate unit of analysis, appropriat e dependent variable, corroborative data, and problems of role playing. Des pite these issues, comprehension of jury instructions may be suitable for e xamination by jury simulation techniques-if certain of these methodological concerns can be satisfied. In a series of 5 experiments using typical Cana dian legal instructions on criminal conspiracy and the coconspirator except ion to the hearsay rule, this study attempted to validate a simple and inex pensive technique for testing the incomprehensibility of a given set of jur y instructions by requiring participants to apply those legal instructions to a set of facts. The results demonstrate the utility of an application te st, and suggest that for assessing the comprehensibility of jury instructio ns, it may be acceptable to use undergraduate students as participants, to use individual participants without group deliberation, and to employ writt en stimulus materials.