That indispensible newspaper, the Economist, includes an amazing and disturbing article this week on judicial decision-making. The article profiles exhaustive research on parole decisions made by Israeli judges. The good news is that neither the sex nor ethnicity of offenders influenced parole decisions. The less good news is that the rate of denying parole was strongly related to how long it had been since the judge had a break for lunch. Judges being people, they become tired after hearing many cases without a break, and opt for decisions that take less mental effort, in this case keeping the prisoner in prison.
In the same vein, I was at a meeting last week with Professor Rob MacCoun in a room with a long, executive style table. He sat at the end with a window behind him, and I mentioned that psychological research had shown that those two factors tended to make people more convincing when a group seated at a table has a debate. He responded by relating some fascinating research in one of his areas of expertise: jury behavior.
Juries overwhelming elect men as their head juror, a potentially influential role. For some time the usual explanations of this phenomenon were popular among social scientists (e.g., widespread sexism), but then scientific attention turned to the possible effects of seating. When men enter a jury room that has a rectangular table, they almost always sit at the head. And sitting at the head gives a juror a big advantage in the election of head jurors. If you manipulate the situation by letting women enter the jury room first, or by using a round table, the proportion of juries who elect women as head juror soars.
Francis Bacon knew about tables in 1612:
“A long table and a square table, or seats about the walls, seem things of form, but are things of substance; for at a long table a few at the upper end, in effect, sway all the business; but in the other form there is more use of the counsellors’ opinions that sit lower.”
The ideal shape of table IMHO for a meeting is elliptical, chaired from a seat on the short axis. Obama understands about the short axis.
The next time I teach a course with a usable sex ratio (my current one is 85% female)I hope I remember to take some data about who sits in front in the first couple of days.
the last time i served on a jury it was over an eviction situation in a municipal court and there were 6 of us on the jury. three of the jurors were white men in our 50s or older (including me), one was a white woman in her 60s, one was a hispanic woman in her 20s, and one was a black man in his 20s. as soon as we got in the room the other two white guys sat at opposite ends of the rectangular table and started talking about how many juries they had been the foreman for. i interrupted them to say i thought the hispanic woman should be the foreman. the black guy and the other woman smiled and went along with me and the two guys at the ends of the table found themselves outflanked and meekly agreed. the most satisfying part of the whole case was the looks on the faces of the judge and lawyers when we came out and they realized that our foreman was a young hispanic woman. it was certainly more satisfying than the verdict we were forced to bring in on the case.
In my experience, in my jurisdiction, the judge names the foreperson — I have no idea by what criteria. One time, the judge named me. She knew me personally and knew that I was a lawyer. I felt that being a lawyer helped me, not because of my knowledge of the law, but because of my ability to get the jurors to stick to the issue.
In my experience as a juror, the jury gathers in the jury room for the first time and either goes dead silent or begins chatting about their kids, their hobbies, what they would be doing if they weren’t stuck doing jury duty. The honor of foreperson was put upon whoever first mentioned that perhaps the jury might want to start talking about the case at hand. Sucker that I am, it took me three tries to catch on and just keep my mouth shut.
Having said that, I am white and male, though I tend not to sit at heads of tables.
I was a juror in a (minor) criminal trial some years ago. When the jury retired to deliberate, sure enough, the most vocal white male on it, a Baptist preacher, sat at the head of the table and was promptly elected foreman. Influential position indeed! He led the jury through a pro-forma summary of the case, end with a statement that obviously the hispanic male defendant was guilty. Nobody else said much and he asked for a vote so we could “get out of here quickly”. We voted, and it was nearly unanimous, only 1 not guilty vote. That was me. So he asked me why, incredulously. I told him the case had no evidence supporting the testimony of the arresting officer. The defendant had a different story. Without other evidence, or a logical demonstration that the defendant’s story must be wrong, that cannot be the basis for eliminating reasonable doubt about his guilt. We then went on to spend hours, with him and a couple of others trying to apply all sorts of social pressure on me to conform, arguments about the social circumstances of the defendant meaning he must be guilty, arguments that the policeman would have no incentive to lie, etc. and me continuing to point out that there was no other support and telling a couple of stories about policemen lying in other circumstances to illustrate that that testimony just wasn’t enough by itself. Finally, after several votes, the tally changed, now 10-2 instead of 11-1. At that point, we could all agree that we were hung, and we were allowed to report that and leave. After the trial, the prosecutor came up to me and said, “I can’t ask how you voted, but I note you’re an academic, and I’m sure you’re the one who hung the jury. I’ve been advised to always dismiss academics from the jury pool, now I know why.” I asked him what he was after, justice or convictions? And now guess what, I hardly ever get called for jury duty any more even though I vote in every election;-} “Justice” system, indeed.
Michael: why isn’t 85% female a usable sex ratio?