Jury decisionmaking in rape trials: An analysis of predeliberative and deliberative content and effect

Researchers that have developed models of jury decisionmaking have largely ignored rape cases. Even when they have not, most of the reported studies have used hypothetical scenarios in which a rape event is presented to mock jurors as a given, and where deliberation and legally relevant outcome measures are absent. Further, many focus exclusively on the supposed explanatory power of individualistic juror variables. In contrast, this examination examined whether in the high-ambiguity consent-defense rape case, juries employ some shared means by which to reach a verdict. The hypotheses tested here assumed that in cases where the evidence is ambiguous, we can see most clearly how juries make sense of it. Precisely due to its ambiguity, a consent-defense rape trial is the classic case where belief-driven "story construction" is likely to occur. In the consent-defense context, this story construction may be dependent on the degree to which jurors conceive the victim as having merited the complete and legitimate status as a victim. Nine (9) mock juries consisting of 108 jurors were observed after having been given one of three versions of a scripted consent-defense rape case. Jurors rendered both individual and group verdicts; a two-staged analysis, employing both numeric and qualitative (observational) measures, examined both jurors' and juries' grounds for judgment. This analysis measured whether decisionmaking was consistent with both a story model of jury decisionmaking and the victim legitimacy concept. The deliberative explanatory power of victim legitimacy versus non-victim legitimacy dependent story construction were compared---following content analysis of the mock trial deliberation transcripts---with the decisionmaking processes of individual jurors. Little support was generated for the notion that individualistic variables---including a manipulated "prior relationship" variable---were predictive of verdict. However, strong support was found for both individual and group-level victim legitimacy-dependent story construction. The data support a further conclusion that jury-level verdict is strongly mediated by the contextual constraints of group decisionmaking, to include the unanimity and reasonable doubt requirements.