Jury Appeal

There is none more famous psychological experiment than Solomon Asch’s demonstration of the strong pull of conformity.  Faced with an obviously wrong answer from five other people, half the respondents agreed the majority of the time with the wrong answer while only a quarter of the people held to the obvious truth.  Half the people ignored the truth right in front of their eyes!

Now if this is not enough to break out in a sweat it gets worse.  We have no way of identifying definitively which people will fall in this category of strong group conformity.  I see this group-think happening to some degree every mock jury I watch.

However, there is a silver lining for litigators.  It takes a strong consensus to create this conformity.  Therefore, litigators can dampen this effect by gaining the favor of only a minority of jurors.  The best place to accomplish this is with your witnesses.  If your witness comes off as credible, honest, and authentic you will gain some advocates that can create doubt to dampen the conformity process.

Tags: Conformity and the jury process, Will jurors conform to the majority view in your jury?