Positive and Negative Pretrial Publicity: The Roles of Impression Formation, Emotion, and Predecisional Distortion

The authors investigated the effects of exposure to pretrial publicity (PTP) on impression formation, juror emotion, and predecisional distortion. Mock jurors read news articles containing negative (antidefendant) PTP or positive (prodefendant) PTP or unrelated articles. One week later, they viewed a videotaped murder trial and then made decisions about guilt. Jurors’ emotions were measured three times during the experiment: before exposure to PTP, immediately after exposure to PTP, and immediately following the trial. Exposure to both positive and negative PTP significantly affected verdicts, perceptions of defendant credibility, emotion (anger and positive emotions), and predecisional distortion. Defendant’s credibility, jurors’ emotions, and predecisional distortion significantly mediated the effect of PTP on guilt ratings