Juries. They decide whether someone is innocent or guilty; whether they will serve life in prison or be a free man. Although juries are made up of a representative population to avoid bias, it is unreasonable, or frankly impossible, for people to be completely impartial. Biases, beliefs, experiences are some of the many things that can influence decision making within a jury.

 If an elderly, accomplished woman and a young, tattooed man were two suspects for a murder, the man would be more likely to be convicted because of the representativeness heuristic. The representative heuristic is a cognitive bias that causes people to make judgments based on stereotypes. For most, a tattooed man would seem more likely to be a criminal than an elderly lady. Heuristics like these can cause people to be wrongfully convicted, just because they fit the description of a person who might commit the crime, regardless of what the facts say. 

Biases are able to impact the jury's decision making, because of preconceived ideas about groups of people. A common example of this is shown in custody battles. Women are perceived to be the more adequate parents, therefore gaining better results in custody battles. This is because women are perceived as better caretakers, even if the facts are presented that the father would best care for the kids in certain cases. The jury would possibly look for information to confirm their bias, such as a specific instance where the father did something wrong, but then disregard all the wrongdoings of the mother. This is called confirmation bias, which is a person’s tendency to only seek out information that supports their idea.

 Personal experiences can also impact how people act on a jury. Although jurors are asked to not be a part of the case if they have any reason why they would be biased, it is not a foolproof method. For example if a person on the jury was once a victim of a robbery, and the case being tried was a robbery, they would be more inclined to believe that the defendant was guilty, regardless of the facts being shown.

Although juries can be impartial, there are lots of benefits to having juries. For example with criminal trials, all of the jury members have to agree on the verdict, which allows for the defendant to have a fighting chance to prove that they are innocent. Juries allow for the defendant to gain sympathy, as they are regular people without any attachment to the case, as opposed to lawyers or judges. Juries, regardless of their flaws, allow for the justice system to be more just.

This article was written in collaboration with Psych Experiment.