By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm:
Over the weekend, the jury in the George Zimmerman case acquitted the neighborhood watchman in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, evidently concluding that the prosecution failed to disprove the Defendant’s self-defense claim under Florida law. While there were numerous issues driving interest in this trial — racial profiling, concealed carry laws, and the stand-your-ground defense among others — the jury itself carried a special source of fascination for court watchers: It was an all female panel. Rewinding back to the start of the trial, you might recall that this fact generated a fair amount of speculation. Orlando defense attorney Diana Tennis, for example, was quoted in the New York Times suggesting that the women would be more sympathetic to the loss of a child, an association that was echoed widely in the media. Never mind that this maternal status (most had children) could have also made them more sympathetic to losing a child to prison, the scant information on the jurors generally made gender into a commonly referenced filter as the facts emerged in the case: How would the women respond?
The question is: Did this gender homogeneity make a difference in the jury room? The answer, it probably didn’t. As Vanderbilt sociology professor Holly McCammon wrote for CNN at the trial’s start, “The answer is likely to be that the all-female jury will have little or no effect on the ultimate decision in this case. Research shows that no one juror trait, including gender, is an accurate indicator of how a juror will vote.” And it is true that the attitudes jurors carried — on race, crime, guns, law enforcement, self-defense, and a host of other issues — likely had a far greater effect on the ultimate decision than the jury’s XX or XY chromosome configuration. At the same time and more broadly, that isn’t to say that an all-female jury makes no difference. There are a few ways jurors might see the case differently, and especially deliberate differently, due to gender. Since the anonymous Zimmerman jurors aren’t talking yet, I thought I would write about a few of those differences.
First, It’s a Small Difference
The coverage throughout this trial was infused with speculation on how the women might have been reacting as each piece of information came out. For the most part, these questions sprang from outmoded and essentialist assumptions on women’s “nature” that are best set aside in 2013. Sure, you could find women — probably many women — who would embody the stereotypes of greater maternal sensitivity and a lessened tolerance for deadly force. But as often, you would find women to whom the stereotypes don’t apply, or women who would be more than able to set them aside in a court of law. One thing we can be fairly confident of: The women in that jury room did everything in their power to center their deliberations and ground their verdict on law and evidence, not sentiment or sympathy. And the same would likely have been true if they were all men.
The research field is littered with failed attempts to find reliable differences based on gender, and other demographic traits for that matter. Fulero & Penrod (1990), for example, reviewed the research on the predictiveness of demographic traits including gender and found that at best only modest predictors of verdicts. More recently, Lieberman (2011) wrote that even these modest associations are “still murky after 30 years.” That is why it doesn’t make sense in a voir dire context to do too much pondering on the influence that a juror’s gender will have. Even to the extent that there are reliable differences in the population at large, you are still stuck with those who answer the call on a given day, and within that set, what matters is each person’s experiences and attitudes. It is best to take whatever time you would have spent thinking about gender and devote that time to asking about attitudes and experiences.
But It’s Not No Difference
While gender differences within a jury aren’t dramatic, nor should they be determinative in a voir dire context, they are nonetheless interesting. The small differences that we have seen in some cases, especially those relating not to individual traits but to leadership and group dynamics, are still useful when it comes to the task of analyzing what might’ve gone on in the privacy of the deliberation room. Based on the research, I’d point to a couple of differences that we might expect when we look at a homogeneous female group such as the one that acquitted George Zimmerman.
First, a female jury will obviously have a female foreperson. That truism is a point worth making only because research has shown, even recently, that women are less likely to serve as the jury foreperson. When the group is mixed, as it generally is, males have a statistical edge in becoming foreman (Cornwell & Hans, 2011). When an assertive male isn’t available, women fill that role in a way that has at least some effect on the way the group is managed. Women as a group tend to exhibit more of the leadership styles associated with effective group performance (Eagly, 2007). This may partially explain why the Zimmerman jury was able to a) signal an interest in reviewing all the evidence by asking for an inventory, while b) finishing their task with a speed and efficiency that surprised many observers.
Second, a female jury is more likely to find consensus. As I’ve written previously, there is a definite process advantage within groups that are composed mostly or entirely of women. Woolley and Malone (2011) looked at group performance, originally focusing on the cumulative IQ levels of group members as a predictor of better group performance. What they found instead is that groups with higher numbers of smarter individuals didn’t do better, but groups with more women did. This was a consistent result and a linear one as well, meaning the more women the better. The reasons, the researchers believe, have to do with the higher levels of “social intelligence” in groups of women: It leads to fewer attempts to dominate and more attempts to find shared ground. So if commentators were worried about a hung jury and the need for a retrial in the Zimmerman case, we now know they need not have. Along with the bonding effect of sequestration, the all-female panel was likely an important part of what led this jury to a unanimous and quick verdict.
While the Zimmerman case will no doubt continue to generate debate on racial profiling and the wisdom of concealed carry and stand-your-ground laws, the verdict has to be chalked up as a vindication in some ways for the Defense. If the jury was talking, my suspicion is that they would be repeating the main Defense themes, namely that no matter how tragic the result, their job was to keep the burden of proof on the prosecution, not to connect any dots, and to remember that self-defense means self-defense at all levels – for both second degree murder and manslaughter. Now, court watchers can reasonably disagree over the jury’s verdict at this point. But from the perspective of effectiveness at least, defense attorney Don West can maybe be forgiven for that bad joke in opening statement.
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Other Posts on Gender:
- Don’t Count on Gender Differences When it Comes to Compassion
- Female Attorneys: Expect (But Don’t Accept) a Subtle Bias in the Courtroom
- That’s Right, The Women Are Smarter: Pay Attention to Your Jury’s Social Intelligence
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Cornwell, E. Y., & Hans, V. P. (2011). Representation Through Participation: A Multilevel Analysis of Jury Deliberations. Law & Society Review, 45(3), 667-698
Eagly, A. H. (2007). Female leadership advantage and disadvantage: resolving the contradictions. Psychology of women quarterly, 31(1), 1-12.
Fulero, S. M., & Penrod, S. D. (1990). Myths and Realities of Attorney Jury Selection Folklore and Scientific Jury Selection: What Works, The. Ohio NUL Rev., 17, 229
Lieberman, J. D. (2011). The Utility of Scientific Jury Selection Still Murky After 30 Years. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20(1), 48-52.
Luppi, B., & Parisi, F. (2012). Jury Size and the Hung-Jury Paradox SSRN Electronic JournalDOI: 10.2139/ssrn.1980387
Woolley AW, Chabris CF, Pentland A, Hashmi N, & Malone TW (2010). Evidence for a collective intelligence factor in the performance of human groups. Science (New York, N.Y.), 330(6004), 686-8 PMID: 20929725
Photo Credit: Mrkathika, Flickr Creative Commons