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Jury Culture and Decision-Making in Rape Trials: A Review & Empirical Assessment  


Author:  Douglas D. Koski.


Source: Volume 03, Number 03, April/May 2002 , pp.33-38(6)




Sex Offender Law Report

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Abstract: 

This is the first in a multipart series, to be presented in this and upcoming issues of SLR, based on Dr. Koski’s article “Jury Decisionmaking in Rape Trials: A Review and Empirical Assessment,” which appears in its entirety in 38 (1) Criminal Law Bulletin 21 (Jan./Feb. 2002), and is reprinted in SLR with the kind permission of the author and publisher. In this first installment, Dr. Koski discusses some of the pitfalls and shortcomings that have developed in the process of determining justice by means of trial by jury, most especially as present in consent-defense rape cases. It is in such cases that subjective judgments as to issues of credibility and culpability are preeminent and thus, for both the prosecution and defense, it is critical to know and understand the factors that enter into the jury’s decisionmaking process. Dr. Koski describes the underlying assumptions and methodology employed in a study designed to determine how it is that juries “make sense” of the evidence presented at trial and which forms the basis of a theory of jury decisionmaking to be presented in a later article.

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Affiliations:  1: Rutgers University School of Criminal Justice, Distinguished Research Fellow.

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