Abstract
This study examines the proposition that first ballots predict jury verdicts inaactual juries, an oft-cited finding from Kalven and Zeisel, and the explicit assumption by Kalven and Zeisel that first-ballot preferences are equivalent to predeliberation opinions, referred to as the liberation hypothesis. Interview data from respondents who had served on felony juries indicate that first ballots do predict jury verdicts at a high level. However, it is probable that influence occurs in juries prior to the first ballot, making it unlikely that the distribution of votes on the first ballot is equivalent to the individual inclinations of jurors at the time they enter into deliberation, which casts doubt on the liberation hypothesis. Methodological issues in the study of real juries on these topics are discussed.
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The authors wish to thank Lois Chaffins and Jeff Carico for their assistance in conducting the interviews; Steve McKinley and Professors Young Koh, Dualatram Lund and Alexander Weiss for their comments on the statistics, and the anonymous reviewers for the helpful suggestions.
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Sandys, M., Dillehay, C. First-ballot votes, predeliberation dispositions, and final verdicts in jury trials. Law Hum Behav 19, 175–195 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01499324
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01499324