Illustrations and other possible contributors to clarity in jury instructions

Abstract

Jurors often fail to understand legal concepts due to the complex language and method of delivery of these instructions (Charrow & Charrow, 1979; Sontag, 1990, cited in Patry & Penrod, 2013; Tiersma, 1995, cited in Tiersma, 1999). There have been multiple attempts to simplify judges’ instructions to juries, some of which include employing readability formulas and simplifying the language of the text by removing ambiguous terms and complicated syntax. However, readability formulas seem to provide only a general indication of a text’s difficulty, and the plain language approach has similarly been unsuccessful in significantly improving comprehension on its own. Therefore in order to truly improve understanding of legal concepts, one must go beyond focusing purely on linguistic factors. This overview of the literature examines how supplementing text with illustrations can increase jurors’ understanding of legal concepts to a greater extent than what can be achieved when only the language of the text is simplified. This examination of illustrations in jury instructions considers the influence of ordering effects, metaphorical relatedness, and subjective perception, as well as the derived benefits from using illustrations such as a reduced cognitive load and enhanced mental models for jurors. This overview concluded that illustrated jury instructions, in addition to the use of readability formulas and plain language, can improve understanding of legal concepts in jurors and are therefore promising contributors to the construction of clearer jury instructions.