Speaker 1: What's up everyone, and welcome back to the program. In
this episode, we're going to continue on with the declaration
of Brian Edelman. Ada County community members did not suffer
severe levels of emotional distress during the search for the killer.
Only thirty one percent of prospective jurors reported that they
or someone they know experienced higher levels of stress, anxiety,
or fear during the manhunt, twenty five percentage points lower
than in Leayta County. In conclusion, given the extent and
nature of the pre trial publicity in Leayta County, coupled
with its negative impact on the jury pool, it's my
opinion that there is a reasonable likelihood that the defendant's
constitutional rights to a fair trial have been undermined. As such,
it's my opinion that remedial measures, including a change of venue,
are appropriate to ensure a fair and impartial trial. Two
qualifications education and experience. A copy of my curriculum can
be found in Appendix A of this declaration. Upon completion
of my undergod graduate education, I received an MA and
PhD in social psychology from the University of Nevada Areno
and an LLM from the University of Kent. In the
United Kingdom. My graduate studies have provided me with the
broad foundation in both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, as
well as statistics. The Social psychology program at the University
of Nevada is unique in that it's one of the
few in the country that has an emphasis on application
of social psychological theory to the legal arena. During my studies,
I specialized in jury related issues and examined how attitudes, race, stereotypes,
pre trial publicity, and other factors influenced jur and jury
decision making. In this regard, I took coursework addressing topics
associated with change of venue motions, the impact of pre
trial publicity on juror's ability to be fair and impartial,
and the steps necessary to conduct a change of venue analysis.
The university's association with the National Judicial College and NAM
and other government agencies also afforded me the opportunity to
conduct research with the public defender, district Attorney, court Services,
the judiciary, and other institutions in Washaue County, Nevada. Research
experience while at the University of Nevada a Reno, I
worked as a research assistant and project manager at the
Grant Sawyer Center for Justice studies where I assisted with
several national surveys, including one that examined the judiciary's understanding
and application of the Dobert standard. I also explored how
jurors minimize what they have read, seen, or heard about
high profile cases during vordere In addition, I oversaw a
study in Washoe County's pre trial release program and assisted
with the development of training programs for foreign justices, court administrators, prosecutors,
and defense attorneys who were brought to the United States
by the Department of State. Further, I have conducted and
published research on the impact of illegitimate factors on jur
decision making. This research included developing and testing a model
that attempted to explain how factors such as race and
empathy influence pre and post deliberation sentencing decisions in capital cases.
My research as a jury decision making in capital cases
was later published as a book. Since completing my studies,
I have also published on the impact of graphic images
on jurors and on methodological issues associated with online survey
research jury research experience. I began working as a trial
consultant in nineteen ninety eight and co founded Trial Innovations
in twenty ten. Over the years, I've worked on hundreds
of criminal and civil cases across the country. As a
trial consultant. I have conducted mock trials, focus groups, surveys,
post trial interviews, and other research exercises. I've consulted in
the courtroom and assisted with jury selection on more than
one hundred cases. I have also served as a presenter
at local bar associations, law firms, national meetings and conferences.
In addition, I have been invited to conduct mcl EQ
course related to jury selection by the Public Defender, Alternate Defender,
and District Attorney in California, Nevada, and New Mexico. I
have also served as a guest lecturer at the University
of Santa Cruz, Saint Mary's College, and Stanford Law School
Venue Experience. As a graduate student, I was trained by
doctor Ronald Dillahay and doctor Edward Bronson, two of the
leading experts in the country on venue and pre trial publicity.
Over the years, I've had the opportunity to work with
doctor Bronson on a number of change of venue studies.
I've worked on change of venue issues in several different capacities.
As a researcher, I have coded trial transcripts and high
profile cases to evaluate how jurors minimize their bias and
exposure to pre trial publicity during vordeer and challenges this
phenomenon poses for judges and attorneys. In addition, I examined
the impact of television pre trial publicity on pre judgment
of guilt. I have also presented as a panelist on
change of venue issues at the American Society of Trial
Consultants Annual Conference and been a co author on the
chapter in the California Criminal Law Procedure and Practice on
Change of Venue. Since twenty eleven, I have conducted content
analysis of media coverage on a host of topics and
have designed more than fifty community attitude surveys Over the years.
I've been retained as an expert to conduct and evaluate
change of venue studies and also to recommend remedial measures
for addressing exposure to pre child publicity outside of a
change of venue expert witness experience. I've been retained as
an expert witness on matters including freedom of religion in China,
political asylum hearing, eyewitness identification, and change of venue. I've
testified as an expert witness in person or by declaration
in California, Idaho, Colorado, Texas, Michigan, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Tennessee,
West Virginia, and Washington. In state and federal court, in
the majority of cases that I have been retained to
conduct a change of venue study, I have recommended against
a change of venue. Three. The influence of attitudes on cognition.
There is a substantial body of literature documenting the impact
of attitudes on information processing. Attitudes have been shown to
have an impact on selective attention, the evaluation of new information, memory, recall,
and behavior. This research provides insight into how media coverage
may lead to jurorbias. Pre trial publicity can have a
prejudicial effect on jurors though its impact on the formation
of attitudes and beliefs that they bring into the courtroom.
Attitudes are not isolated entities, but are often linked to
other memories, experiences, attitudes, and beliefs. These links can create
large networks of attitudes which are resistant to change. The
links between attitudes strengthened with repeated activation. As these links strengthen,
the probability increases that the attitudes and underlying beliefs will
be consistent with one another and brought to awareness simultaneously.
Attitudes that are strongly linked to one another are more
easily accessible in memory and more likely to be automatically
activated with exposure to the attitude object. Attitudes can be
activated automatically without conscience intentional processing. This is more likely
to occur when an attitude has been repeatedly activated in
the past. When media coverage surrounding a case is broad, extensive,
and redundant, strong links between relevant attitudes and beliefs begin
to form. If the pre trial publicity creates links between
case details, attitudes, and beliefs over the course of a trial,
these attitudes are likely to be automatically activated at a
subconscious level. As described below. This network of linked attitudes
can have an impact on juror's attention to an evaluation
of the evidence and arguments presented in court. As the
network of linked attitudes grows and strengthens, specific attitudes become
resistant to change because change requires revisions to other attitudes
and beliefs within the network. Resistance to revising well established
attitudes has been shown to lead to biased information processing.
When attitudes are strong, there is a tendency to favor
arguments that information in support of those attitudes over arguments
that may disprove them. The acceptance of a counter argument
can create cognitive dissonance. In an effort to avoid cognitive dissonance,
information that supports attitudes may be selectively attended to, and
counter arguments may be distorted or dismissed. Attitudes can also
have an impact on attention and recall. Research is shown
that information that supports a pre existing attitude is easier
to learn, more accurately retained, and easier to recall. The
links formed between attitude andally supporting information and pre existing
attitudes are stronger than those formed between counter arguments and
pre existing attitudes. As a result, the latter is more
difficult to retrieve from memory. Further, there is a tendency
to produce new beliefs which support pre existing attitudes and
suppress those that run counter to such attitudes. In some
when a venue is exposed to prejudicial media coverage surrounding
a crime, there is a risk that a potential juror
will develop a large network of linked attitudes and beliefs
relating to the victim, the defendant, and the crime. These
linked attitudes include opinions about the guilt of the defendant,
appropriate sentence, and evaluations of the evidence presented through the media.
When the links between attitudes are strong, they can be
activated at a subconscious level and have an impact on
jurors evaluation of the evidence and arguments presented at trial.
Attitude andal LEAs supporting arguments will be more closely attended to,
evaluated as persuasive, integrated into the existing network of attitudes
and beliefs, and made easily accessible during deliberations. In contrast,
counter arguments and evidence conflicting with well established attitudes may
create cognitive dissonance. As a result, jurors will either ignore
this evidence or make cognitive efforts to refute it. This
evidence will not establish strong links to pre existing attitudes
and will not be easily accessible during deliberations when a
venue has been saturated with pre trial publicity. These psychological
process can put the defendant at a significant disadvantage, undermine
the presumption of innocence, and diminish the prosecution's burden of proof.
The prejudicial impact of pre existing attitudes is accentuated by
the fact that the media coverage underlying them is often
biased in favor of the prosecution. Furthermore, news content is
encoded under very different circumstances from those found in the
courtroom because rules of evidence that are strictly enforced at
trial do not apply. As such, the persuasive impact of
information presented through the news media becomes more significant and
ingrained in the juror's mind than the evidence presented at trial.
All right, we're going to wrap up this episode here
and in the next episode we're going to pick up
with part four, the prejudicial impact of pre trial publicity.
All of the links that go with this episode can
be found in the description box.