REDUCING THE BIASING EFFECTS OF JUDGES NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR WITH SIMPLIFIED JURY INSTRUCTION

This research hypothesized that using simpler jury instructions would reduce jurors' reliance on judges' nonverbal behavior. Mock jurors wer e given either standard or simplified jury instructions, heard actual trial testimony, and then saw a judge reading jury Instructions (i.e., a judge who had an expectation or belief of either guilt or innocence for a defendant). This experiment was conducted twice, once with a st udent population and once with an adult population. For the students, neither the judges' expectations nor the jury instructions were strong ly related to the jurors' verdicts. For the adults, jurors returned mo re guilty verdicts overall when judges thought the defendant was guilt y, and this trend was moderated by the jury instructions. The relation ship between judges' expectations and jurors' verdicts was strongly po sitive when standard instructions were given but was weaker and in the opposite direction when simplified instructions were given.