Trust in the jury system: a comparison of Australian and U.S. samples

Monica K Miller; Jeffrey Pfeifer; Brian H Bornstein; Tatyana Kaplan

doi:10.1080/13218719.2020.1862002

Trust in the jury system: a comparison of Australian and U.S. samples

Psychiatr Psychol Law. 2021 Jan 29;28(6):823-840. doi: 10.1080/13218719.2020.1862002. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Monica K Miller¹, Jeffrey Pfeifer², Brian H Bornstein^{3

4}, Tatyana Kaplan⁵

Affiliations

¹ Interdisciplinary Social Psychology PhD Program and Criminal Justice Department, University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, NV, USA.
² Department of Psychological Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
³ Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA.
⁴ School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Arizona State University - New School, Tempe, AZ, USA.
⁵ Interdisciplinary Social Psychology PhD Program, University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, NV, USA.

Abstract

Public trust in the criminal justice system, including the jury system, is important for maintaining a democracy that is fair for all citizens. However, there is little research on trust in the jury system generally and even less cross-country comparison research specifically. Trust in the jury system might relate to other legal attitude measures (e.g., authoritarianism). This study identified the degree to which trust in the jury system relates to legal attitudes and compared perceptions of trust between the U.S. and Australia. Community members completed a survey that included measures of trust in the jury system and legal attitudes. The U.S. sample had higher levels of trust in juries than the Australian sample. In both samples, just world beliefs and legal authoritarianism were positively related to trust. Results have both theoretical and practical implications regarding legal attitudes, trust in the jury system, and public opinions of juries in each country.

Keywords: Attributions of crime; cross-national jury comparisons; fairness; institutional trust; just world beliefs; legal attitudes; legal authoritarianism; trust in jury system.

Grants and funding

This project was funded by the College of Liberal Arts Scholarly and Creative Activities Grant Award and the College of Liberal Arts/Reynolds School of Journalism travel grant (University of Nevada, Reno).