Understanding the limits of limiting instructions - Social psychological explanations for the failures of instructions to disregard pretrial publicity and other inadmissible evidence

Inadmissible information may come in a variety of forms including pretrial publicity and in-court statements made by witnesses or attorneys. A number of remedies have been proposed for controlling the damaging effects of such evidence. When inadmissible information comes in the form of pretrial publ icity, judges may issue a continuance or rely on voir dire to remove biased jurors. In addition, it has been argued that deliberations may serve as an effective remedy. Finally, judges may issue an admonition to disregard pre trial publicity or other inadmissible evidence presented in court. Empirica l research has demonstrated that such safeguards are relatively ineffective and sometimes produce a backfire effect, resulting in jurors being more li kely to rely on inadmissible information after they have been specifically instructed to disregard it. Several social psychological theories provide e xplanations for the failures of admonitions, including belief perseverance, the hindsight bias, reactance theory, and the theory of ironic processes o f mental control. Existing inadmissible evidence research and relevant soci al psychological theories are reviewed. The article concludes with a discus sion of theoretically based policy recommendations.