Objection! The Effect of Objections on the Jury

They serve to enforce evidentiary rules and protect the right of a fair trial.  Attorneys are meant to zealously advocate for their clients, and objections are an important tool that allows attorneys to protect their clients and preserve the record.  However, jurors are often affected by objections and sometimes an objection can do more harm than good.

Objections are an important part of the trial process. Objections are one of the only ways that an attorney can enforce evidentiary rules. Objections also serve to preserve the record.  An attorney must make a timely objection if the party wants to preserve a challenge to an error.  Often times, decisions to make objections are made nearly instantaneously as the trial unfolds.  There are certain benefits and costs of using this trial tool.  If an objection is sustained, it can prevent the jury from hearing evidence that could be harmful to the party.  Even if the objections are overruled, the objection preserves the record for appeal.  Objections also serve as an opportunity to interact with the jury and put their persuasive skills on display.  Alternatively, objections serve as an interruption to testimony.  This sort of interruption can draw the jury's attention to the evidence that is being objected to and can often cause the jury to rely on or fail to ignore the information that was being objected to.

Current studies indicate that jurors are unable to disregard inadmissible evidence completely.  Even when instructed to disregard the evidence, jurors still will give weight to the evidence that was objected to and will allow it to affect their verdict.  In fact, in some cases, judicial instructions often backfire, causing the jury to become even more focused on the evidence that was being objected to.  An objection isolates the evidence, and jurors often hone in on specific moments when deliberating.  Objections often stand out in the mind of jurors because of the interruptive nature of objections.

There may be some solutions that would allow attorneys to continue to make objections without negatively impacting the jury. One solution would be to refine the judge's instructions.  As previously stated, jurors often disregard a judge's instruction to disregard inadmissible evidence and draw unwanted attention to the specific evidence, so allowing the judge to explain further about why the attorney objected and why the evidence is inadmissible and why it is necessary for the jury to disregard the evidence.  Further explanation, rather than a cold instruction, may alleviate any jury confusion.  It could also be beneficial to allow the attorney who won the ruling on the evidence to further explain their objection and why it was necessary for them to object.  Objections could be viewed by the jury as an attorney hiding information, so allowing the attorney to explain could prevent the jury from thinking that information was being hidden from them.  I plan to explore the research on this issue further and will report my findings in my final paper.