PSY328H5 Lecture Notes - Impulsivity, Headache, Interpol
Document Summary
Jury functions: to use the wisdom of 12 to reach a verdict. Notion of having regular community members who stand to make decisions of whether the accused is guilty or not or liable or not. Notion that 12 is a nice number and representative of those in the community. There is use of random selection to ensure that the jury is not biased, since a biased jury would not be representative. However, want to pick people who do not have knowledge, interests, etc. in the particular case. Most cases are decided by the judge alone, but serious cases include juries in order to avoid systematic bias take decision-making out of the hands of a single person and distribute the decision-making to more people. However, both sides (defense and prosecution) are attempting to have jurors who are biased towards their side take part. It is a duty as a citizen to be called for jury duty.
