Verdict Summary- Jury Deliberation and Decision-Making Process

Verdict Summary- Jury Deliberation and Decision-Making Process

The duty of the Jury in court is to give their verdict based on the information provided by witnesses. The chances of getting justice are limited if a witness provides false information either willingly or unwillingly. Memory is, therefore, important because it guides the witnesses’ recollection of what happened, hence enabling them to give the jury enough information to settle on a reasonable verdict. There are various theories of memories that can be used to interpret a witness’s memory pattern. The first one is the decay theory, which proposes that a person may lose memory because of time and the wearing off of memory strength (Amendola et al., 2021). The second theory is the interference theory, which proposes that memories stored in long-term memory are forgotten and cannot be brought back to short-term memory. The third theory is proactive and retroactive interference. Proactive interference happens when a person cannot learn something new because they have learned something old. Retroactive interference occurs when a person forgets something they had learned before because they have learned something new (Baddeley, 2019). The fourth theory is the fading memory theory, which proposes that people forget things as time elapses. The fifth theory is repressed memory, which proposes that an individual may lose memory when they face a trauma that is too intense to be kept in conscious memory and is removed by dissociation or repression. It may then be remembered later under innocuous situations and reappear in conscious memory (Logie et al., 2020). The sixth theory is a false memory, which proposes that a person can have a recollection that appears to be real in their mind but is manipulated (Brainerd & Reyna, 2005). The seventh theory is the distortion theory, which proposes that a person’s memory may be distorted when there is incorrect retrieval of their memories and information is remembered differently compared to what happened. The other theory is the retrieval cue failure, which proposes that a person may be unable to retrieve a memory because they do not have clues triggering it.

In the current case, the memory and testimony of the witnesses could be affected by the decay theory and false memory. The decay theory could affect the witness’s ability to remember everything that happened because a lot of time has elapsed since the incident occurred. The witness did not identify the defendant until weeks after the murder occurred. The false memory, on the other hand, could make the witness provide false information about what occurred. The witness could paint a different picture of what happened in their minds and present this picture in court, hence misleading the Jury into making a verdict based on false information. As a Jury member, I, Darius, present our findings that indicate that the defendant is not guilty. There were no fingerprints and DNA to prove that the defendant committed the murder. The murder weapon was also not recovered to link the defendant to the crime. In addition, listening to the testimonies provided by the two main witnesses should not be round for making a guilty verdict because the witnesses demonstrate being affected by memory decay and false memory.

My main observation was that the verdict process was generally systematic. The defendant presented two key witnesses. The first witness was the bartender’s girlfriend. Her testimony was that she saw a pistol that shot her boyfriend emerge from the crowd. She then changed her testimony, stating that she saw a young man slide over the bar, pull out his gun, and shoot the bartender twice. She identified the defendant as the man who shot the bartender. The second witness was from the prosecution. He was a young female who witnessed the first shot being fired and took cover under the table but managed to see a man enter the building holding a gun, run and slide over the bar before firing two shots and jumping back over the bar to flee the scene. The forensic investigator provided informative incite matching the testimonies given by the witnesses. The defense attorney raised questions to help in interpreting the testimonies provided by the witnesses.

In the cross-examination of the first witness, the defense attorney brought up the fact that the witness’s initial report said that the first shot was from a tall man with long, braided hair. The attorney questioned whether the event might have distortion, implying that the girlfriend remembered some information and made up the rest. The attorney also raised the question of interference. When cross-examining the second witness, the defense attorney asked her whether she had consumed any alcohol. She responded by stating that she had not. The attorney then questioned her whether she knew her cousin well. She responded by stating that she did not and why she had not come forward as a witness sooner. The witness stated that she feared for her life, which is why she was reluctant to testify. The defense attorney then questioned why they had initially mentioned that there were two shooters. The detective responded by stating that it was because the girlfriend’s preliminary report had indicated that.

References

Amendola, G., Fabrizio, M., & Golden, J. (2021). Exponential decay. Thermodynamics of Materials with Memory, 625-641. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80534-0_27

Baddeley, A. (2019). Working memory and conscious awareness. Theories of Memory, 11-28. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315782119-2

Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (2005). False memory in criminal investigation. The Science of False Memory, 290-360. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195154054.003.0007

Logie, R. H., Pelletier, C., & Doherty, J. M. (2020). Integrating theories of working memory. Working Memory, 389-430. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198842286.003.0014

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As someone with a background in psychology, you (Darius) have been chosen to be the foreman for this jury. It is your task to organize the jury’s thoughts on whether the defendant should be found guilty or innocent.

Verdict Summary- Jury Deliberation and Decision-Making Process

This jurisdiction requires a jury to submit a court document summarizing the verdict process. Therefore, you will need to provide a Word document to the judge explaining the thought process of the Jury during deliberation for the court to file away as part of the official verdict. Use references from this module and include APA in-text citations.