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One Voice Among Many: Forepersons, Juries, and the Importance Of One Voice Among Many: Forepersons, Juries, and the Importance of Communication Traci Feller A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2017 Reading Committee: David Domke, Chair Randal Beam Michelle Habell-Pallan Geoffrey Loftus Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Communication ©Copyright 2017 Traci Feller This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ or send a letter to: Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA. University of Washington Abstract One Voice Among Many: Forepersons, Juries, and the Importance of Communication Traci Feller Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Dr. David Domke Department of Communication Jury forepersons are fundamental to the deliberations over which they preside, and thus our justice system. This dissertation explored who became jury forepersons, how they were selected, how they communicated and behaved during the deliberations, and how these factors might have impacted the perceptions of the jurors in the deliberation. I examined video recordings of 22 mock jury deliberations, performed content analysis, and administered questionnaires to 249 mock jurors. Overall, I found that females and people of color were not equally represented as leaders of groups and faced greater adversity when asserting themselves to this role. Furthermore, the communications and behaviors of forepersons impacted jurors’ deliberation satisfaction, ratings of the foreperson, impressions of other jurors, and impressions of humanity in general. Only about a fifth of jurors reported wanting to be foreperson, the others cited a lack of knowledge or skill necessary for the role. Nearly two-thirds of jurors stood out to others during the deliberations and this was overwhelmingly due to their communication skills, or lack thereof. This work has several implications for our jury system and how it impacts the justice system at large, and it argues for greater research in the field of jury deliberations and improved instructions for jurors. Keywords: communication, deliberation, foreperson, juror, jury, leader FOREPERSONS AND JURIES i Table of Contents List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... iii List of Tables ................................................................................................................................ iv Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2: Conceptual Argument ............................................................................................... 8 The Foreperson ....................................................................................................................... 12 Communication in the Deliberation ...................................................................................... 16 Deliberative Outcomes ............................................................................................................ 21 Deliberation Satisfaction ....................................................................................................... 22 Self-Efficacy about Democracy and Deliberation ................................................................ 23 Ratings of the Foreperson ..................................................................................................... 24 Impressions of Other Jurors and Impressions of Humanity in General ................................ 26 Open-Ended Questionnaire Responses ................................................................................. 28 Chapter 3: Methods .................................................................................................................... 29 Content Analysis ..................................................................................................................... 32 Post-Deliberative Questionnaire ............................................................................................ 36 Chapter 4: Foreperson Selection ............................................................................................... 40 Results ...................................................................................................................................... 43 Foreperson Selection, Characteristics, and Behaviors .......................................................... 46 Foreperson Characteristics related to Deliberation Style ...................................................... 53 Additional Analysis .............................................................................................................. 58 Discussion ................................................................................................................................ 62 Chapter 5: Juror Questionnaire ................................................................................................ 68 Procedures and Expectations ................................................................................................. 70 Results ...................................................................................................................................... 73 Deliberation Satisfaction ....................................................................................................... 74 Self-Efficacy about Democracy and Deliberation ................................................................ 78 Ratings of the Foreperson ..................................................................................................... 79 FOREPERSONS AND JURIES ii Impressions of Other Jurors and Impressions of Humanity in General ................................ 82 Additional Analysis .............................................................................................................. 85 Discussion ................................................................................................................................ 89 Chapter 6: Jurors Who Wanted to be Foreperson and Jurors Who Stood Out .................. 94 Results ...................................................................................................................................... 98 Research Question 4 ............................................................................................................. 98 Research Question 5 ........................................................................................................... 107 Discussion .............................................................................................................................. 117 Chapter 7: Toward Better Understanding Juries and their Forepersons ........................... 121 Review of the Data ................................................................................................................ 125 Limitations and Future Research ........................................................................................ 130 Implications ........................................................................................................................... 133 References .................................................................................................................................. 137 Appendix A: Codebook ............................................................................................................ 151 Appendix B: Questionnaire ...................................................................................................... 160 FOREPERSONS AND JURIES iii List of Figures Figure 1: Foreperson Nomination Type by Sex .............................................................................48 Figure 2: Egalitarian Leadership Style Scores for Forepersons by Sex .........................................51 Figure 3: Foreperson Communication Quantity and Egalitarian Scores .......................................53 Figure 4: Foreperson Egalitarian Scores by Deliberation Satisfaction ..........................................75 Figure 5: Foreperson Communication Quantity and Deliberation Satisfaction .............................77 Figure 6: Foreperson Egalitarian Score and Ratings of the Foreperson ........................................80 Figure 7: Foreperson Communication Quantity (z-score) and Ratings of the Foreperson ............81 Figure 8: Juror Response to Wanting to be Foreperson and the Six Deliberation Concepts .......106 Figure 9: Juror Education and Education of Jurors Who Stood Out ...........................................109 Figure 10: Number of Times Jurors Named as Standing Out by their Speaking Quantity .........113 FOREPERSONS AND JURIES iv List of Tables Table 1: Characteristics of Forepersons Relative to All Jurors .....................................................45 Table 2: Juror Sex by Self-Nomination .........................................................................................47 Table 3: Nominator Sex by Foreperson Sex ..................................................................................47 Table 4: Foreperson Nomination Caveats by Foreperson Sex .......................................................49 Table 5: Egalitarian Leadership Style Scores for Forepersons by Sex ..........................................50
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