So why are we doing this?
In court untrained people are expected to understand complex and technical evidence. The experts are therefore expected to be able to explain things in a way that can be understood by people without proper training. But how do we know how well do they do this?
Consider this questions in terms of everyday life. How many times have people misunderstood what you were trying to say? It happens to everyone. Very little in life is as important or as potentially complicated as communicating an idea from one person to another. This is especially true when the idea being communicated is based on specialized knowledge or experiences that the listener doesn’t have.
Try to explain how to make a brownie from scratch to someone who has never baked or how to thread a pipe to someone who has never seen a tap and die set. The teacher has to choose their words carefully to find a common frame of reference while explaining accurately in a way that the listener will understand. As tasks become more specialized finding common frames of reference become more difficult and explanations become harder to give.
Fortunately, most complicated activities don’t need to be explained in detail to people with no knowledge or experience. Have you ever asked the chef why he used a copper whisk or why the garage didn’t set the pneumatic torque to 160 foot-pounds? Probably not. Either you have the specialized knowledge to know why, or you probably don’t care. Most of us tend to simply accept that people do their jobs a specific way because that’s the way it’s done. But, we don’t have that luxury when we are sitting on a jury and the way the job is done or the results that it produces become evidence in court.
It is the responsibility of the juror to understand for themselves and not simply accept the expert’s conclusions. This is especially true when opposing experts present contradictory explanations. The juror therefore needs to have enough foundation knowledge to be able to determine the facts.
This study presents evidence in a way that emulates a trial except that the questioning of witness has been replaced with summaries of the testimony. After each witness you will be asked to answer some multiple choice questions. Then at the end of the case you will be asked to render a verdict and tell us why you voted that way.
