• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.497-510
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• 2015

The jury instruction consists of a set of legal rules and provides a guide for jurors to interpret evidence and the legal standard of a proof beyond reasonable doubt. Jury instructions are usually given after the closing arguments (at the end of the trial). But some research has shown that jury instruction provided before the evidence may have an impact on verdict. The present study was to determine the cognitive process caused by early instruction: (1) Early instruction may influence the verdict by upwardly adjusting the threshold for the decision to convict; (2) early instruction may influence the verdict through evaluations of the probative values of evidence; (3) Or both. 187 people older than 20 years of age participated in the on-line survey. With a trial scenario, one independent variable, Instruction Procedure, was manipulated in three levels: before-and-after the evidence procedure, after-only evidence procedure, and no-instruction procedure. The instruction procedure conditions did not show any difference in the evaluation of the probative values of evidence. On the other hand, before-and-after condition showed the lowest rate of guilty verdict and the highest probability of guilt for the defendant in the scenario. This latter result clearly suggested that the instruction procedure affects the decision threshold. Specifically, instruction provided twice, once before and again after the evidence, may upwardly shift the threshold for the decision to convict.