Jurors grappling with complex legal jargon are more likely to vote guilty while coming away less confident in their own performance and the judicial system, according to a new study.
"When jurors are struggling to process legal language, they vote guilty more often," said Olivia Bullock , Ph.D., a professor in the University of Florida's College of Journalism and Communications who led the study. "If the outcome that's desired is impartiality and fairness, then using plain language throughout the process is the way to go."
In recent years, some judges have tried to use simpler terms in areas like jury instructions to improve fairness. But Bullock says that the law's so-called plain language movement should go further. Courtrooms could provide glossaries of technical terms or prepare plain language summaries of expert testimonies, for example.
"There are ways to fix this," said Bullock, an expert in the psychological effects of jargon.
The experimental survey asked more than 1,000 participants to imagine serving on a jury. Half were shown written testimony based on real jury transcripts, complete with jargony terms that are common in such proceedings, like "fraudulent conveyances" or "escheatment reporting" in the instance of a tax fraud case. The other participants saw transcripts translated into simpler language, where "defalcations" became "misused funds."
Bullock found that the legal jargon reduced participants' processing fluency, or the ease of handling new information. Research shows that this state of uncertainty and confusion leads people to blame their negative feelings on factors like their environment.
For the participants told to imagine a jury scenario, that resulted in more guilty verdicts. The cognitive strain also left them less certain about their own performance and the entire process.
"People are making bad decisions, they're not feeling good about those decisions and then they walk away trusting the system less," Bullock said. "That has the potential to erode everybody's trust."
Bullock published her findings March 15 in the Journal of Applied Communication Research.
