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Before voir
dire, conduct an experiment to help you select jurors.
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Create
Your Case. Create your case by entering some case identification, key
facts, and assertions.
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Select
Evaluators. Select a number of evaluators with known
characteristics and experiences that are thought to be relevant to the
facts and assertion(s).
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Conduct
Experiment. Let evaluators evaluate the case without communication - either from the facts alone or from the facts in the presence of persuasion
(during a
mock trial). Since evaluators use the Convex Web site, they can be
dispersed or collocated, but their relative locations depend upon the
experiment.
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Select
Response Variable. A response variable, is a variable to be measured
as it responds to variations in the experiment. It is intended to
provide the information you are seeking from the experiment. Although
FactLogic provides almost any response variable you could desire, the
margin is a particularly important one. It is the one from which jurors
decide and the verdict is predicted:
Margin
= (Probability the Assertion is True) - (Standard of Proof).
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Analyze
Experiment. After the experiment is conducted, you can use FactLogic
to
select/deselect evaluators, depending upon their characteristics and
life experiences to see how any evaluator or subgroup of evaluators judged
each fact, judged the standard of proof, evaluated each assertion, and
predicted the verdict for each and all assertions. Only FactLogic
can predict verdicts from the quantified judgments of facts and evaluations
of assertions.
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Select
Jurors. Select jurors, based upon the relationships between the
judgments of evaluators and their characteristics.
1.
Select Evaluators
Usually
evaluators should represent the venire (and, hence, drawn randomly from
it), but the method of selecting evaluators should
depend upon your objective.
The number of
evaluators is determined by either
The more evaluators, the more precisely the response variable can be known.
If you assign evaluators, FactLogic, sends an
e-mail message inviting each evaluator. It allows each evaluator to access
your case
and evaluate it in a secure and private Internet session. See
Internet Evaluations.
2.
Measure the Variation of the Response Variable as a Function of a
Characteristic
The following
is an example of how the demographic characteristic, ethnicity, affects the
margin. It shows that the margin is significantly different for two
categories of ethnicity, and the predicted verdict is greatly affected by
ethnicity.
Example.
A young black male is to be tried as murder suspect. Select evaluators
that can demonstrate the effect of the characteristic, ethnicity.
Solution
(Compare the Margin from Two Groups). A group of 31 evaluators was
randomly chosen from automobile driver license holders in downtown Los
Angeles, the venue in which
the criminal trial is scheduled. The size of the number of evaluators was
selected by budget constraints rather than by the desired precision.
Since this is a criminal case, the standard of proof, reasonable doubt, was asked of the
members. (Reasonable doubt should be called reasonable certainty.) The
facts are listed with FactLogic. All
evaluators gave the facts a very high level of credibility (i.e.
"Probability Fact is True" is nearly 100%). The real issue for the
evaluators is the probability that this fact proves the cause of action,
murder. The 23 black evaluators registered a significantly lower probability the cause of
action is true for than did the eight white evaluators. Specifically, the
average probability the cause of action is true among the black members is
40.246%, and the average reasonable doubt is 95.044%. The average
probability the cause of action is true among the eight white members is 64.998%,
and the average reasonable doubt is 78.770%. In terms of the response variable:
- The
margin from the 23 black members is 85.290% - 95.044% = -9.754%.
- The
margin from the eight white members is 94.768% - 78.770% = 14.998%.
Although
these results are to be expected, FactLogic allows
the judgments to be quantified and additional analysis is possible. For
example, due to the distribution of the probabilities comprising these two
averages, a comparison test revealed that the margin from the two groups
(i.e., 23 that are black than 55 years and eight that
are white) are significantly different at the 5% significance level. That
is, there is only a 5% probability that these two groups provide the same
value of the margin: Ethnicity is a significant characteristic
for this fact, and older jurors should be selected for your client.
Solution
(Predict the General Verdict from Each Group). The predicted verdicts
are extremely dependent upon ethnicity:
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The margins among the 23 black evaluators averaged -9.754%, and analysis
from FactLogic shows that the probability of a verdict For the
Prosecution from the black evaluators is less than 0.6%.
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The margins among the eight white evaluators averaged 14.998%, and analysis
from FactLogic shows that the probability of a verdict For the
Prosecution from the white evaluators is 34.3%.
3.
Select Jurors from Knowledge Obtained from the Evaluators
The response
variable
can vary with no demographic characteristic, one characteristic, or more.
If the response variable is the margin, the predicted verdict
from each group of evaluators can be observed as a function of
characteristics and experiences. If the response variable is a more basic probability (e.g.,
the probability a specific fact is true or the probability a specific
assertion is true), you may want to conduct a significance test, to
determine if one group of evaluators is significantly different from the
other with respect to the response variable. In any case, use the knowledge you
obtained from the evaluators to select jurors.
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