If we apply these principles to the question of the jury, the task is
clear. We want to find out whether the coöperation, the discussion,
and the repeated voting of a number of individuals are helping or
hindering them in the effort to judge correctly upon a complex
situation. We must therefore artificially create a situation which
brings into action the judgment, the discussion, and the vote, but if
we are loyal to the idea of experimenting we must keep the experiment
free from all those features of a real jury deliberation which have
nothing to do with the mental action itself. Moreover, it is evident
that the situations to be judged must allow a definite knowledge as to
the objective truth. The experimenter must know which verdict of his
voters corresponds to the real facts. Secondly, the situation must be
difficult in order that a real doubt may prevail. If all the voters
were on one side from the start, no discussion would be needed.
Thirdly, it must be a rather complex situation in order that the
judgment may be influenced by a number of motives. Only in this case
will it be possible for the discussion to point out factors which the
other party may have overlooked, thus giving a chance for changes of
mind. All these demands must be fulfilled if the experiment is really
to picture the jury function. But it would be utterly superfluous and
would make the exact measurement impossible if the material on which
the judgment is to be based were of the same kind of which the
evidence in the courtroom is composed. The trial by jury in an actual
criminal case may involve many picturesque and interesting details,
but the mental act of judging is no different when the most trivial
objects are chosen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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