Television\'s Impact on Jurors Juror

Television's Impact On Jurors

Juror qualifications have long been a topic of discussion for those in the legal field. Jurors that are over-educated may be difficult to lead through evidentiary procedures because they consider themselves to know more than the prosecutor, defense counsel, or the witnesses that they present. On the other hand, jurors with little knowledge can be dangerous, because they might have a hard time grasping and understanding complex technical evidence. Both of those issues have plagued the court system for years, with different attorneys having different opinions about the qualities of an ideal juror. However, there is a new problem with modern juries, not the educated juror vs. The uneducated juror, but the wrongly educated juror. Many of today's jurors consider themselves experts in criminal justice, not because of any actual life experience, but because of information they have learned watching television shows. This is referred to as the CSI effect, after the first of the television shows to make forensic science the focus of the standard law drama. "The CSI effect can best be described as a phenomenon where television 'educated' jurors are more likely to not convict someone who is guilty because procedures and techniques they observed from the fictional television show were not applied in the case" (Heinrick, 2006). However, CSI was simply the first in a wave of television shows to feature forensics as a plot device. Moreover, other shows that, like Law and Order, which may inaccurately depict the legal process, also lead jurors to have unrealistic expectations about proper police procedure.

For years, defense attorneys have sought juries that have very little actual knowledge of the law or legal processes. Because those juries do not come into court knowing about procedure, they could be more easily manipulated than knowledgeable juries. Today's defense attorneys may have a different agenda. They do not necessarily want juries that are ignorant about the legal process; instead they want juries that think they are informed about the legal process. The CSI effect theorizes that so much of modern television focuses on airtight evidence, that many people think that you cannot convict someone without irrefutable physical evidence connecting them with the crime. The reality is that there is not always physical evidence linking perpetrators to crime scenes.

Most people probably associate the CIS effect with the recent Casey Anthony trial. In the court of public opinion, there was little doubt that Casey Anthony was responsible for her daughter's murder. Her behavior surrounding the child's death was simply bizarre. First, she lied and said that the child had been kidnapped, and then denied knowledge of the child's location, and later the location of the body. The body was found with duct tape over the child's mouth, and a sticker on the duct tape. Furthermore, Anthony's behavior after her daughter's disappearance, during a time period in which the defense theory demonstrated that she had knowledge of her child's death, was far from what one would expect from a grieving mother. She partied continuously, got a tattoo that seemed to celebrate her newfound freedom, and engaged in erratic behavior. The general public was certain that she had committed a murder.

The problem is that there was a lack of substantive evidence linking Anthony to the crime. No one could determine Caylee Anthony's cause of death; Casey Anthony's DNA was not on the duct tape covering Caylee's mouth, and there was no evidence that Anthony had been in the same location where the body was dumped (Hoffmeister, 2011). In other words, there was no physical evidence linking Casey Anthony to the crime. Therefore, when the jury decided to acquit Anthony, many people believed the acquittal was due to the CSI effect. Certainly, had there been any physical evidence linking Anthony to the crime, a conviction would have been almost a certainty given Anthony's bizarre behavior after her daughter's death.

However, it is important to realize that a conviction against Anthony would have been difficult to achieve even in the days before TV shows like CSI. There was no evidence linking her to the commission of a murder. The defense's theory was unusual, but it was not unreasonable. The reality is that everyone linked to the child's death behaved very bizarrely in the days following the child's disappearance. It would have been difficult for any prosecutor to establish this case beyond a reasonable doubt, which is what the United States demands for criminal convictions. There is no reason to believe that this jury demanded physical evidence. If the prosecution had been able to turn up a witness that saw Anthony committing the murder or disposing of the body, there is no reason to believe that the jury would have dismissed that evidence because it was not forensic evidence. The real problem in the Anthony case was not a lack of forensic evidence but simply a lack of evidence. Gut instinct may suggest that Anthony is guilty of the murder of her child, but gut instinct is not sufficient to overcome the very high burden established for a criminal justice system.