How Does Inadmissible Evidence Influence Juror Decision Making

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Examlex · Accepted Answer

The Answer is Main points:
• Inadmissible evidence is biasing evidence that is not directly relevant to the case or cannot be admitted to trial on its merits. It may include hearsay evidence, pretrial publicity information, etc.;
• If a judge deems some evidence inadmissible, he gives the jurors instructions to disregard it and sometimes explains why;
• Despite these instructions, jurors do not just forget the inadmissible evidence: if they consider it important, relevant to the case, and trustworthy, they take this information into account;
• Jurors are especially likely to remember inadmissible evidence if they do not understand why the judge deemed it inadmissible (ironic processes and reactance theory explain why);
• If the evidence is actually unfair or not well confirmed, the jurors do indeed assign less weight to it;
• Jurors are likely to give a lot of weight to previous convictions, especially for similar crimes to the one they are considering at trial.

How Does Inadmissible Evidence Influence Juror Decision Making

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