Jury Room Ruminations on Forbidden Topics

The blindfolding approach to jury control implicitly assumes that jurors will not consider a topic unless it is introduced at trial. Modern behavioral research on the jury, however, both rejects the image of the jury as a blank slate on which evidence is etched and raises serious questions about the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Virginia law review 2001-12, Vol.87 (8), p.1857-1915
Main Authors: Diamond, Shari Seidman, Vidmar, Neil
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attorneys fees
Automobile insurance
Behavioral sciences
Comments
Defendants
Evidence
Health insurance
Insurance coverage
Juries
Jurors
Law
Liability insurance
Plaintiffs
Theory
Trials
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Description
Summary:The blindfolding approach to jury control implicitly assumes that jurors will not consider a topic unless it is introduced at trial. Modern behavioral research on the jury, however, both rejects the image of the jury as a blank slate on which evidence is etched and raises serious questions about the ability of some of these blindfolding efforts to control the jury by simply prohibiting the mention of specifics at trial. This paper suggests a revised approach to blindfolding. The analysis distinguished between conditions that are likely to benefit from blindfolding and those that call for other strategies to optimally focus the jury's attention on legally relevant information.
ISSN:0042-6601
1942-9967
DOI:10.2307/1073907