The Causes And Countermeasures Of Judges’ Cognitive Bias-An Analysis Mainly From The Perspective Of Criminal Trials

The recent exposure of misjudged criminal cases have brought the quality of criminal trials into public focus and consequently many scholars have given deep insights into the causes of such misjudged cases from different perspectives, which has provided a significant guidance for the practices of trial. Highly complicated in nature, criminal trials are inevitably subject to the influences of many factors, and judges’own influence is an unneglectable one. In trials, judges, with their first identity as ordinary beings, may unconsciously impose their perspectives to cases and because of such cognitive biases, the same case may have different judgments by different judges. Therefore, an analysis on the cognitive factors that cause judges’ cognitive biases in trials may have high practical significance in guiding judges’objective interpretation and accurate judgment of cases. Cognitive bias can be defined as the gap between the reality of a case and the judge’s interpretation of relevant evidence and his judicial decisions accordingly made in the process. The negative impact of judges’ cognitive deviation may find its manifestation in the following phenomena: judges’ inability to ascertain relevant facts, improperly admitted evidence, incorrect social cognition, deficient working ability and courts’ malfunctioning. On the other hand, selective and divided attention, schema modeling, heuristic bias, over-confidence and emotional influences are the factors that may cause judges’ cognitive bias. To ensure the quality of criminal trials, judges’ self-repairing mechanism and safeguard regulations are needed to eliminate the negative effects of judges’ cognitive bias.