Good afternoon, committee members and other attendees. It is a great pleasure to join you from here in Sydney, Australia, today.
By way of background, I will introduce myself. I'm trained in law and experimental psychology. I have done jury research and evaluation of jury programs for approximately 30 years, working first of all in the United States and then more recently here in Australia and New Zealand.
As part of that work, I did a number of studies that looked at different aspects of juror stress. I want to commence my remarks by summarizing, in response to your request, some of the various ways that stressors can arise for jurors in the course of their jury duty from the outset and on through the post-deliberation and post-verdict process as we've just heard about in Saskatchewan, where services have been provided on a follow-up basis.
I think that as a background, it's important to understand that jurors are moving into an environment that is very unfamiliar to them. This can be very intimidating, and that alone can be somewhat stressful. They are required not to discuss their experiences and particularly the content of the evidence and their thoughts about it with others, and so they are in a way cut off from their normal support systems, which is why the need for the courts to provide some additional support systems is important.
Their daily lives are very disrupted by adjusting to the court schedule, which often requires them to travel, and there's often uncertainty regarding the duration of the trial and their attendance at jury duty, which alone can be very difficult and can impose some stress in terms of managing their day-to-day schedules.
The unfamiliarity of the decision task and the fact-finding role that is imposed on them requires quite a lot of learning and guidance from the courts, and, of course, their decision-making often has very serious consequences for the defendant if a verdict to convict is imposed. Jurors feel this burden of participation in the justice system due to the seriousness of the consequences of their decision.
Working with strangers itself can be quite stressful for jurors, who have to adjust to the dynamics of a consensus-making decision model that is required during the process of fact finding and reaching a verdict, particularly while learning to get along with other jurors, and figuring out the decision-making process, which can itself be tricky.
Most of all, jurors suffer from a loss of control over their lives and the decision-making in this experience, which can be quite unpredictable for them.
If we think about their experience once they come into the courtroom environment, oftentimes first of all they are a little confused as to how they should go about responding to just the issues of selection, which vary considerably from one community to another. In Australia, for example, we learned that the fact that jurors in certain states have to parade in front of the defendant during the process of peremptory challenges is particularly excruciating and intimidating, because they walk across and then might be challenged. It's regarded by some as quite an insulting process. Efforts are being made to try to meliorate that sort of confrontation with jurors even before they may have opened their mouths.
Answering questions in public about reasons they might seek excusal, if they are entitled to it, can be very embarrassing depending on what their reasons are, and so procedures that provide them the opportunity to do that in a more confidential environment or ahead of time are very much appreciated by jurors.
Depending on the kinds of processes that exist for challenges as well as for individuals who have legitimate reasons not to serve on a jury needs to be sensitively treated by the jury administrators as well.
Other issues as you move through the process are also important to consider, and next I want to talk a little about the need for ongoing communication with jurors once they proceed through the selection process. While they might have had some liaising officers right at the outset at the jury pool room or at the jury administration office where they initially report, oftentimes once they're assigned to a case they're off in a courthouse that might in fact be in another location or in another building away from the jury administration staff with whom they've initially become acquainted and comfortable. It's very important to make it clear to them who should be their liaising support. Is it someone on the court staff? Or is there some other person or mechanism they can use if they do need support during the trial once they're assigned to a particular case?
The physical facilities in which jurors work are often a neglected source of concern as expressed by juries. For example, in some very traditional or older courthouses, oftentimes the conditions are less than optimal. We've had some difficulties that I can relate here in the Australian context where some older buildings were never purpose-built as jury rooms or deliberation rooms, but in fact were converted from other uses that those buildings once had—in fact, for one of the largest courthouses in Sydney, as department stores. What has happened is that the deliberation rooms are quite cramped, often windowless, and do not afford jurors an opportunity for what we would call some “breakout” space during their discussion. In other words, there is only a conference table around which people sit in cramped quarters in which they have to spend long hours with very little relief.
What we have learned from a great deal of psychological research is that in fact just those physical creature kinds of comforts can do a great deal to relieve some of the pressure of the burden of the decision that people are grappling with, so it's important to take the physical environment into account as well, to provide people a break from the working quarters if they are cramped and, ideally, to have facilities for jurors designed so they are comfortable. Include some additional seating aside from the conference table for smaller discussions by jurors over the duration of the trial. If possible, have openable windows, natural light, and particularly some sort of view that can offer visual relief, which is really more facilitative of productive discussions and less inclined to result in tension and conflict between jurors.
Of course, during the trial, as we've heard from the former speaker as well, there is the potential that some of the evidence may be very confronting, particularly if it is gruesome evidence, which can be particularly stressful. It's important to try to provide the jury with some warning in advance that this is forthcoming and to try to give them some options to manage that. We have found it helpful also if that sort of material is not presented in a very lengthy series but rather in a series of a shorter duration, not just before lunch, not just after lunch, and not very late in the day either, so that jurors have some time for relief from and processing of that information, often perhaps requiring a break after some confronting information is presented, as well as the option to seek support and to seek counselling if they find it particularly disturbing.
In terms of the decision-making process itself in deliberations, some of the innovations in jury research that seem to be most promising are what are sometimes called fact-based question trails or sorts of decision trees that are decision-making aids that are given to jurors to help them to structure the discussion process once they get into the deliberation room and are actually able to start putting together the facts and working on the consensus of the group together. I think New Zealand has been the leader in this area of research. It's also a very popular trend growing in Australian courtrooms, because it helps to take some of the burden off jurors in terms of understanding complex legal language, because a lot of the legal issues are, in fact, embedded in the question trails that then guide jurors through the issues they have to address factually. The feedback that has come from experimental work, testing these kinds of processes against traditional jury directions, is that it's much appreciated, that juries are more efficient, and that their decision-making is more streamlined than it is in other situations. That seems to be a commendable issue to look at.
Jurors also need some guidance on what to do in terms of understanding what is an ordinary, healthy exchange of ideas and disagreement or dissent in a jury deliberation versus what is unhealthy, coercive, and sometimes even bullying, because they're not often given any guidance as to what to do if things become stressful in the deliberation room. Because of the confidentiality requirements that are attached to the deliberation process, there have been some cases in which, after a verdict has been rendered, courts have been surprised to find—in an Australian courtroom, for example—a note left on a deliberation table afterwards by one juror who argued that he was actually physically coerced to reach a verdict of consensus with fellow jurors, and then the court was confronted with the issue of whether that confidentiality of deliberation ought to be penetrated in order to try to resolve whether, in fact, something went awry. So that you don't find yourself in that situation, it's clearly important to instead give jurors some guidance on how to deal with disagreement and on what to do so they don't feel they have no recourse at all if deliberations need some guidance, time out, or consultation to resolve conflicts.