ABSTRACT
Jurors are faced with a rather daunting task, namely, to decide the guilt or innocence of a complete stranger based largely on their memory of the evidence presented at trial. Jurors are expected to operate as passive recipients of information presented by the parties, and generally are prohibited from taking notes, asking questions, or using other potentially memory-enhancing tools. In addition to these specific concerns that arise during the presentation of courtroom evidence, jurors' memory is subject to other biases. For example, jurors bring with them not only the ability to form schemas, but also come well-equipped with various stereotypes. Memory for evidence is also subject to recency effects. For example, jurors' memory is better for more recently presented evidence than evidence presented at the beginning of trial. The results showed that mock jurors were able to disregard the wiretap evidence when it was ruled as inadmissible regardless of whether that witness also produced the admissible and incriminating letter evidence.
