Jury size and group psychology

[Ilsa]

I can't help but wonder about the small jury for the Zimmerman trial. I wonder if it's easier for one individual to manipulate and engineer an outcome when there are fewer members to deal with.

I wonder, but not as much, if the fact that it was all-female made it easier to get the three to change their minds to not guilty.

I wonder if there was something like "group think" going on, for example, "If they are willing to assume he's innocent and bear the fallout from this verdict, then I should be too." I wonder if discussing the case leads to more manipulation.

We know that groups tend to make riskier decisions than those individuals would on their own.

Any thoughts? Research? Experience?

[Hoyt]

1. Interesting question. Don't know, but I dismayed not one juror had guts to carry on for a day

or two more. I suspect it were all men, there would have been a couple of bigoted gun nuts to bully the jury.

[louslobbs]

2. I only know this, if five other men or those same five women were on that jury with me, there would

have been nothing they could have said to make me change my mind. I have common sense and if you listen to the evidence, common sense dictates that Z be found guilty of committing a crime. It's likely from what I know, that I would have stood my ground on convicting Z of manslaughter. I would have stood my ground trying to convince the others to change their minds, but in the end, if none of them would have changed their minds, I would have hung that jury big time.
Lou

[Hoyt]

5. When the trial was announced, I figured at least one bigot would hang the jury. Was I ever wrong.

Not one of the jurors stood up for decency to hang the jury.

Truthfully, there's a chance the prosecution would not have retried, but still . . . . . .

[louslobbs]

6. I agree, one person couldn't use their common sense and stand their ground. What could the others

have said that would make three people change their minds.....and so quickly too? Why couldn't one of them stand by their convictions and have used their common sense to stand by what they believed, after all, this was their first vote after all of the evidence had been presented and the judge's instructions had been given, so what could the other three have said that caused the others to say, "hey, you know, I never thought of that, I'm changing my mine? I mean, everybody knows, at least I think that everybody knows that you can stick by your decision in jury deliberations and if the others can't use convincing arguments based on the testimony to change your mind, you don't ever have to change you mind......look, the three that went in there looking for an acquittal, never changed their minds. What could they have said in those hours of deliberations to change the three minds of those who wanted 2 for manslaughter and 1 for Murder 2, and cause this travesty of justice?
Lou

[Shrek]

3. Some of the talking heads were tossing out stereotypes

"They'll deliberate calmly, women prefer consensus and like to avoid confrontation" and the like.

I realize it's dangerous to generalize but I wonder if something like that might have been in play, at least to a degree, given such a small group.

[Malone]

4. Yes

I think it's much easier for an alpha personality type to take over, esp in a smaller group. And there's pressure to look like you understood everything the same way others did and to not look stupid or disagreeable. It may have even come down to who talked first which influenced the others that way.

I also think people who are selected for jury by lawyers might be the more maleable type who they feel can be convinced and might not be strongly opinionated or independantly intelligent.