An Experimental Study of Jury Decisions (0)
| Citations: | 5 - 1 self |
BibTeX
@MISC{McKelvey_anexperimental,
author = {Richard D. McKelvey and Richard D. Mckelvey and Thomas R. Palfrey and Thomas R. Palfrey and Richard D. Mckelvey Thomas R},
title = {An Experimental Study of Jury Decisions},
year = {}
}
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Abstract
We present experimental results on individual decisions in juries. We consider the effect of three treatment variables: the size of the jury (three or six), the number of votes needed for conviction (majority or unanimity), and jury deliberation. We find evidence of strategic voting under the unanimity rule, where the form of strategic behavior involves a bias to vote guilty to compensate for the unanimity requirement. A large fraction (between 30% and 50%) of jurors vote to convict even when their private information indicates the defendant is more likely to be innocent than guilty. This is roughly consistent with the game theoretic predictions of Feddersen and Pesendorfer (FP) [1998]. While individual behavior is explained well by the game theoretic model, at the level of the jury decision, there are numerous discrepancies. In particular, contrary to the FP prediction, we find that in our experiments juries convict fewer innocent defendants under unanimity rule than under majority ru...
Keyphrases
jury decision experimental study unanimity rule innocent defendant numerous discrepancy jury deliberation majority ru private information unanimity requirement game theoretic model strategic behavior individual decision large fraction fp prediction individual behavior game theoretic prediction experiment jury experimental result treatment variable strategic voting
