Question 1

Summarize the means by which the polygraph works as a lie detector.What two major problems call its accuracy into question?

Accepted Answer

The answer of Summarize the means by which the polygraph...

Question 2

A police officer testifies that the defendant in a murder trial confessed to the crime.Under cross-examination, the officer reveals details of the interrogation that suggest it is likely that the defendant was coerced into confessing.How are jurors likely to react to the confession evidence?

Accepted Answer

A)  Jurors will discount the confession because it was coerced. 
B)  Jurors will accept the confession because as a general rule jurors don't believe that people would confess to a crime that they did not commit. 
C)  Jurors will believe that they have discounted the confession, but will vote to convict anyway. 
D)  If the judge instructs jurors to disregard the confession evidence, then they will discount it, but otherwise, they will not.

Question 3

The "leniency bias" refers to

Accepted Answer

A)  jurors' tendency to go easier on ingroup defendants versus outgroup defendants. 
B)  the impact of judicial instructions on jurors. 
C)  the tendency for jury deliberation to tilt toward acquittal. 
D)  the finding that judges are harsher on defendants than are juries.

Question 4

Research on inadmissible evidence suggests that, contrary to the judge's instructions, juries often pay attention to such information

Accepted Answer

A)  even when it is unreliable. 
B)  when it is reliable but inadmissible because of a legal "technicality." 
C)  when it is emotional in content. 
D)  All of these

Question 5

Among the following, which conclusion is not consistent with research on confessions?

Accepted Answer

A)  Confessions are discounted more by jurors who see a videotape that focuses on the interrogator instead of the defendant. 
B)  When false evidence is presented by an interrogator, suspects are not only more likely to confess to a crime they did not commit but also to believe this confession. 
C)  Jurors often fully discount a defendant's confession if they learn that the confession was obtained while the defendant was being physically threatened by police. 
D)  Police detectives use an average of five to six tactics when trying to obtain a confession.

Question 6

The defense attorney asks Twila, a prospective juror, if she knows the prosecuting attorney.This illustrates what process?

Accepted Answer

A)  Voir dire 
B)  Normative influence 
C)  Informational influence 
D)  Jury nullification

Question 7

An eyewitness identified Ashtok from a lineup as the man who robbed the bookstore.As an employee of the store, Ashtok was present during the crime but was not the person who committed the crime.The eyewitness's false identification was most likely the result of

Accepted Answer

A)  the leniency bias. 
B)  the misinformation effect. 
C)  a familiarity-induced bias. 
D)  the fundamental attribution error.

Question 8

Guilty suspects can fool a polygraph test if they

Accepted Answer

A)  simply deny any and all involvement in the crime for which they are being questioned. 
B)  meditate prior to the administration of the test. 
C)  lie in response to any crime-relevant questions, but tell the truth in response to the control questions. 
D)  artificially inflate their arousal to control questions by tensing their muscles.

Question 9

Stark and colleagues (2010)showed participants slides of a man stealing a woman's wallet and slipping it in his jacket.Then an auditory recording recounted the event, stating that the wallet had been slipped into his pants.The results showed that

Accepted Answer

A)  false memories tended to occur in the visual cortex. 
B)  false memories tended to occur in the auditory cortex. 
C)  false memories rarely occurred. 
D)  memories could be accurately retrieved if participants visualized the crime.

Question 10

Jurors often fail to adequately discount coerced confessions because of

Accepted Answer

A)  the positive coercion bias. 
B)  the fundamental attribution error. 
C)  a sentencing disparity. 
D)  reconstructive memory.

Question 11

Emily has just witnessed a violent crime.She is very worked up about it.In this physiological state, Emily is likely to focus on all of the following except the

Accepted Answer

A)  weapon. 
B)  culprit. 
C)  setting. 
D)  victim.

Question 12

Research shows that a jury's final verdict can often be predicted accurately if which of the following is known?

Accepted Answer

A)  Nonverbal behaviors of the jurors during the trial 
B)  Thoughts of the individual jurors just before deliberation begins 
C)  Initial vote of the foreperson 
D)  Proportion of men to women on the jury

Question 13

Kobayashi describes to police the man who attacked him as follows: 6 feet tall, Caucasian, gray hair, close to 200 pounds.The lineup that the police put together to present to Kobayashi includes eight individuals, four with brown hair and two who are bald.In this instance, the police have done a poor job

Accepted Answer

A)  selecting the foils for the lineup. 
B)  guarding against the misinformation effect. 
C)  avoiding bias in their lineup instructions to the witness. 
D)  All of these

Question 14

Kalven and Zeisel (1966)found that _____ percent of judges agreed with the verdicts juries rendered in all cases.

Accepted Answer

A)  45 
B)  60 
C)  78 
D)  92

Question 15

Litigants at trial may remove prospective jurors from their jury through the use of peremptory challenges.Traditionally, no explanation has to be given for the use of a peremptory, but within the past few decades, the U.S.Supreme Court has ruled that peremptories may not be based on a juror's

Accepted Answer

A)  education level. 
B)  race. 
C)  physical appearance. 
D)  All of these

Question 16

Lawyers may dismiss prospective jurors without having to justify their dismissal by using

Accepted Answer

A)  jury nullification. 
B)  sentencing disparity. 
C)  peremptory challenges. 
D)  normative influence.

Question 17

Relative to deliberations in which the jury must reach a unanimous verdict, deliberations in which the jury can use a non-unanimous decision rule tend to

Accepted Answer

A)  encourage open conflict among jurors. 
B)  breed closed-mindedness among jurors. 
C)  increase the influence of jurors in the minority. 
D)  increase jurors' confidence.

Question 18

Research concerning race and capital punishment indicates that

Accepted Answer

A)  for judgments of such serious repercussion, judges and juries are rarely if ever influenced by race. 
B)  the more "stereotypically African American" a Caucasian defendant appears, the more likely he is to be sentenced to death. 
C)  defendants are most likely to be sentenced to death when they murder a same-race victim. 
D)  None of these

Question 19

As described in your book, Sommers's (2006)study examining the influence of a jury's racial composition indicates that

Accepted Answer

A)  Caucasian and African-American jurors are often equally likely to vote to convict an African-American defendant. 
B)  African-American jurors often successfully convince Caucasian jurors to change their votes during deliberations, particularly when they offer multiple arguments for doing so. 
C)  Caucasian jurors often evaluate a trial differently when their jury is diverse versus all-Caucasian. 
D)  diverse juries have a harder time coming to a unanimous decision than do all-Caucasian juries.

Question 20

The tendency for people to be more accurate at recognizing members of their own racial group than of other groups is called the

Accepted Answer

A)  ingroup homogeneity effect. 
B)  outgroup homogeneity effect. 
C)  own-race identification bias. 
D)  cross-race identification bias.

Exam 12: Law