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Pretrial Beliefs and Verdict Accuracy: Costly Juror Effort and Free Riding

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  • Guha Brishti

    (Centre for International Trade and Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi110067, India)

Abstract

If jurors care about reaching the correct verdict, but also experience costs to paying attention during the trial, even a small effort cost generates interesting interactions between pretrial beliefs and verdict accuracy. I demonstrate the existence of a strong free riding effect; jurors respond to a more informative prior by reducing their probabilities of paying attention, to the extent that over a non-empty range, a more informative prior will be associated with poorer verdicts. Pretrial beliefs can depend on several factors: I consider two – the extent of discovery during the pre-plea bargaining process, and the efficiency of the police. My results imply that more liberal discovery rules, which result in a less noisy plea bargaining process, will actually be complemented by greater juror effort over a range, resulting in more accurate verdicts. In contrast, greater police efficiency will, over a range, elicit a sufficient drop in juror effort such that verdicts are less accurate. Thus, improving discovery has added benefits over a range, while the benefits of exogenous improvements in policing may be dampened. I briefly extend the model to cases where attentive jurors receive an imperfect public signal instead of a perfect one, and to cases where jurors’ utilities from convicting a guilty defendant differ from their utilities from acquitting an innocent one.

Suggested Citation

  • Guha Brishti, 2020. "Pretrial Beliefs and Verdict Accuracy: Costly Juror Effort and Free Riding," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 20(2), pages 1-9, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:bpj:bejtec:v:20:y:2020:i:2:p:9:n:2
    DOI: 10.1515/bejte-2018-0020
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    References listed on IDEAS

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