A Study of Juror Expectations and Demands Concerning Scientific Evidence: Does the CSI Effect Exist?

This article is the first empirical study of jurors designed to investigate the existence and extent of the CSI effect. The authors conducted a survey of 1027 persons who had been called for jury duty in a Michigan state court during a nine-week period in June, July and August, 2006. This survey examined the summoned jurors\u27 demographic information, television viewing habits, their expectations that the prosecutor would produce scientific evidence and whether they would demand scientific evidence as a condition of a guilty verdict. This study of juror expectations and demands about scientific evidence in relationship to other types of evidence, such as circumstantial or eyewitness, confirmed Professor Tyler\u27s conclusions that the CSI effect was mixed and that it did not always work in the direction hypothesized by complaining prosecutors and judges. While the study did find significant expectations and demands for scientific evidence, there was little or no indication of a link between those inclinations and watching particular television shows. This article suggests that to the extent that jurors have significant expectations and demands for scientific evidence, those predispositions may have more to do with a broader tech effect in popular culture rather than any particular CSI effect. In other words, if there is a media effect on juror expectations, it is an indirect effect and part of a larger transformation occurring in popular and technological culture. Accordingly, when examining the interactions between televised dramas and juror expectations and/or behavior, scholars and practitioners must be aware that the social construction or the social perception of the law in action cannot be separated from the symbolic representations of law and order as mediated by mass communications and popular culture