Trial delay as a source of bias in jury decision making

TLDR: In this paper, the same individuals who heard the case two years earlier are asked to recall the facts of the case accurately, or will they reconstruct a distorted version of events? Do they have the same attitudes, prejudices and opinions that led them to be selected in voir dire two years before? How will the long delay affect their judgment of damages? Most important, should a new trial be held with a new jury?

Abstract: A jury sits through a lengthy civil trial involving a dispute between two major industrial corporations Complicated technological testimony is presented on both sides The jury ultimately finds the defendant liable A date to assess damages is set, but unforeseen events intervene A jury member is ill; the judge takes a leave of absence; damage assessement is postponed again and again; two entire years pass When the jury is finally summoned to reconvene, the defense attorney requests a new trial After two years, he argues, the jury who will assess damages is no longer the same group of people who decided liability so long ago Time, he asserts, has changed the jury The above case is extreme, but the defense attorney raises a provocative legal and psychological question that pertains to many jurors in lengthy or delayed trials: how would time change a jury? While the jury is composed of the same individuals who heard the case two years earlier, are they still the same people psychologically? Can they recall the facts of the case accurately, or will they reconstruct a distorted version of events? Will they forget mitigating factors in order to justify their prior verdict? Do they have the same attitudes, prejudices and opinions that led them to be selected in voir dire two years before? How will the long delay affect their judgment of damages? Most important, should a new trial be held with a new jury? A good deal of psychological research, much of it very recent, helps to answer each of these questions The research comes from different areas of investigation, relating to different types of issues: first, recent research on social cognition has explored how memory functions as human beings note, store, and recall information about other people and events; second, classic work on attitude change has demonstrated how emotional needs motivate people deliberately to reconstruct the past in order to justify their decisions and behavior; and third,