Name: Charlena Bailey

Cooperating Teacher: Matthew Albert

Subject & Grade Level: English 10 Lesson Topic: CSI Effect in Jurors

Estimated Time: 65 minutes

1. Standards
 [RI.9-10.1]- Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the
text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. (Used in this lesson and
will be used in upcoming lessons in this unit.)
 [RI. 9-10.2]- Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the
course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific
details; provide an objective summary of the text. (Front loading in this lesson in
order to reach this standard.)
 [RI.9-10.3]- Analyze how the author unfolds an analysis or series of ideas or events,
including the order in which the points are made, how they are introduced and
developed, and the connections that are drawn between them. (Front loading in this
lesson in order to reach this standard.)
 [RI.9-10.4]- Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text,
including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze the cumulative
impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone. (Uses in this lesson and will be
used in upcoming lessons in this unit. This standard will be used to prepare students
for the type of langue and words used in a court room. For example, “evidence”.)
2. Teaching model
 Inquiry Based Learning: Students will dissect the information that they read and
document answers to the questions along the way. They will use the given
information to challenge their original thinking before reading the article. This is
a student lead activity as they will work in group together so that they may
discuss and discover as they read and learn.
3. Objective
 How television shows have affected the American Justice System. This will allow
students to debunk the way television has shaped their way of thinking when it
comes to the criminal justice system.
 Introduce students to the way jurors think in a case and how evidence is used in
this thinking process.
4. Material/ Resources
 Bell ringer journal entry prompt posted on a PowerPoint (Teacher Provides)
 Projector (Classroom Technology)
  “Managing the CSI Effect in Jurors” article printout (Teacher Provides) *see
bleow
 Article Questions (Teacher Provides) *see below
 Exit Slip Sheet (Teacher Provides) *see below
 Something to write with (Student Provides)
5. Instructional Procedures
***Since this is a shortened class period the closure and extension portion of the
lesson have been combined.
 Unit EQ: How can humans overcome individual flaws and prejudices to serve
justice and work towards the greater good? (This will be posted on the board
throughout the entire unit.) I will not be introducing the EQ till the 3rd lesson of
the unit.
A. Introduction (20 Minutes)
 Students will begin with their bell ringer
 I will have a writing prompt posted on the projector
 Students will have ten minutes to write their answers in their English journals
 After the ten minutes are up we will all come together as a class to discuss as
a group
 Do you watch any crime/law/criminal shows?
If so, which ones? What role does the laboratory, forensic science and/or
DNA usually take place in these shows?
 The purpose of this bell ringer is to get students to begin thinking like jurors.
Using this as a bell ringer allows students to make connections with the real
world and the themes that they will soon be reading about in “12 Angry Men”.
It will also serve as a way for students to question why they think they know
once they get to portion B in the lesson.
 This lesson is for front loading purposes.
B. Activities or Learning Experiences (45 Minutes)
 Students will get into small groups (These groups will be pre determined
because they will already be sitting in them. This is not only a classroom
management choice but a teaching choice as well. I think that it is very
important for students to work together as often as possible.)
 Students will be handed out two sets of sheets:
o One sheet will be the article that is required to be read by the group
“Managing the CSI Effect in Jurors”.
o Next sheet will be the question sheet that students must fill out while
they read.
 Students will now have 40 minutes to complete their reading and the question
worksheet that they were handed out.
 While students are working in groups each student is required to turn in their
own question worksheet.
 I will prompt students throughout at the following time marks so that they can
keep an eye on how to manage their time:
o 30 minutes
o 15 minutes
o 5 minutes
C. Closure D. Extension/ Contingency Plan (5 Minutes)
 Once the time is up on the worksheet I will prompt student to pass up their
work sheets.
 Next I will be passing out an exit slip for to students
 This exit slip will ask students to:
o What is biased?
o Do you think preconceived notions from television shows cause jurors
in modern day American Society to have biased?
o Should a person have a biased if they are to be on a jury?

***I want to conclude with these questions because it begins to prepare students for themes that
they will encounter in the novel. It will also help clear up student bias based off of the CSI Effect
if these types of TV shows are viewed in the homes. It is also prepping students to become jurors
themselves as they read the novel. This also helps gets students close to being able to answer the
unit EQ and hitting the standards.

6. Accommodations/Modifications
 Accommodations would be implemented depending on the type of 504s and IEPs
that are in my classroom when this lesson is taught
 Modifications will also be made once the lesson is taught and I see what need to
be changed and or adapted to make lesson work more smoothly.
7. Assessment/Evaluation of Learning
 One assessment will be based on the Article worksheet that will be collected. This
will help me see if students understood the language that is used in this type of
setting such as a courtroom.
 The ticket out the door will also help me to assess if students were able to make
the necessary connections that I wanted them to when it comes to bias and how
the outside world tends to enhance an individual’s bias.
8. Homework Assignment
 There will not be any homework
 I do not want homework to be assigned in the first two days of the unit
because these first two lessons are for front loading purposes to prepare
students for the play we will begin reading on day 3 of the unit.
 I will suggest students to go home and watch one of these popular CSI shows
and ask students if they can identify any of the things that article mentioned.
9. Post-Lesson Reflection
 Cannot complete until lesson is taught
10. Rational

I created this lesson as lesson one in my unit for teaching and reading the play “12 Angry
Men”, by Arthur Miller. The reason why I created this lesson was for front loading purposes. I
believe that it is important for students to have background knowledge that will help them
understand what is going on in the play. For example, how jurors think, how outside influences
can create bias, and introducing students to the type of language that they will encounter in a
play that deals with judicial language and terms. I also think this lesson is important to scale back
modern day time sciences and technologies that are used today in order to provide students a
path for thinking like jurors had to back when this play was written. Just because there is not
high tech evidence or some special criminal science used to produce evidence does not mean a
person is not guilty or guilty. It is important for jurors to not go in with preconceived biased or
notions. I believe it is important for students to be able to read the text in the time period it
belonged to because it will provide more clarity for how the jurors thinking evolved based on
what they had to work with.

By using this lesson as my first lesson in the unit it serves as a hook into the unit. I am able to
bring in something that exist in the real world that students belong to such as CSI television
shows and link them in a way that achieves the goals mentioned above, begin thinking of the unit
EQ, and like everything to what they will begin reading. This I believe will make the reading and
the learning more meaningful. This will also serve as an advancement to help students in the
future if they ever have to serve on a jury in their life time. This lesson will also introduce
themes that students will cross once they begin reading the play. This lesson will also begin the
front loading process for students to begin thinking like jurors which is very important to me. I
want students to get into this type of thinking because it will allow students to question the
characters decisions and reasoning within the play as the play unfolds. The front loading process
I believe is very important and pivotal for most units that involve reading. My justifications have
also been made throughout the actual lesson plan.
Managing the CSI Effect in Jurors
apps.americanbar.org/litigation/committees/trialevidence/articles/winterspring2012-0512-csi-effect-
jurors.html

By Katie L. Dysart – May 28, 2012

The now-ubiquitous term the “CSI Effect” has been used to describe the phenomenon

whereby high-tech, forensic science dramatized in television crime dramas such as CSI, Law &

Order, and Forensic Files theoretically promotes unrealistic expectations among jurors of how

apparently clearly and definitely forensic evidence can determine innocence or guilt or, from

the perspective of the civil litigator, causation or liability. CSI, a hit CBS television series that

first appeared on the small screen in October 2000, has more than 67 million viewers a week,

and the franchise has spawned a national obsession with forensic science, from an interactive

educational exhibit opened in Times Square to an increase in forensic science degrees. See

Max M Houck, “CSI: Reality” [PDF], Scientific American, July 2006 at 85; see also Claire

Sanders, “Forensic Courses Cut Open for Analysis,” Times Higher Educ., May 2, 2003, at 8.

As indicated in a study by Donald Shelton, the problem is not specific to CSI or related

programs, as the “tech effect” is derived from the evolution and advancement of modern

technology. Donald E. Shelton, Young S. Kim, and Gregg Barak, “A Study of Juror

Expectations and Demands Concerning Scientific Evidence: Does the ‘CSI Effect’ Exist?” 9

Vand. J. Ent. & Tech. L. 331, 334 (2006).

So the question remains: How does the CSI Effect impact jurors in both the criminal and civil

context? Is this high-tech evidence expected or demanded by our jury system in all cases, and

if so, how can jurors’ expectations be managed by the advocates?

How Does the CSI Effect Influence Jurors?

The CSI Effect has purportedly led to jurors’ unreasonable demands for definite physical
evidence at trial. The vice president of the National District Attorney Association said, “Jurors
now expect us to have a DNA test for just about every case. They expect us to have the most
advanced technology possible, and they expect it to look like it does on television.” See
Houck, supra. The CSI Effect has perhaps rewritten the standard burden of proof in the
criminal context from “beyond a reasonable doubt” to “beyond any doubt.” In other words, it is
completely dependent on seemingly error-proof forensic, scientific, technological evidence. In
the civil context, jurors’ expectations for CSI-like evidence may effectively raise the standard
from “beyond a preponderance of the evidence” to a standard more akin to that in the criminal
context. In much the same way that today’s consumer expects a cell phone to operate on
voice command, today’s jurors expect the introduction of evidence packed with modern
science and technology in trials. These high expectations result in part from the amalgamation
of public awareness, use, and availability of modern science and technology derived from a
variety of sources, including, but not limited to, mass media.

For instance, take the example of a recent, high-profile murder trial. If you were not living under
a rock during the summer of 2011, you are familiar with the Casey Anthony trial for the murder
of her two-year-old daughter, Caylee Marie Anthony, and the subsequent outrage regarding
the not-guilty verdict. Despite being built on circumstantial evidence, the prosecution
presented a seemingly iron-clad case for at least one guilty verdict of the three major offenses.
Within seconds of the outright acquittal, the assembled media advanced the explanation that
the acquittal was due at least in part to the CSI Effect. In fact, one of the jurors on the Casey
Anthony case indicated there was not enough physical evidence to find her guilty.

A troublesome aspect of the CSI Effect is that some of the technology jurors may have come
to expect may not exist, and, even if it does exist, availability does not correlate with
admissibility. Advocates are limited by certain legal norms in court, specifically, the U.S.
Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., codified
in Federal Rule of Evidence Rule 702, which set the framework for the admissibility of scientific
and expert evidence. The CSI Effect is said to cause jurors to automatically attach reliability
and relevance to high-tech evidence to the point that they are unwilling to divorce their
preconceived notions from whether the evidence is in fact reliable and admissible under the
legal rules or jurisprudence.

The CSI Effect does not operate only in criminal cases. While it is typically referred to in the
context of criminal cases, it spills over into civil litigation, especially in complex civil litigation
involving anything technical in nature. Trial Consultant Rich Matthews noted:

It has been documented that prosecutors are offering scientific evidence that they wouldn’t have
even a few years ago—either because it is on a point that isn’t really that important or because
managing the resources and priorities of a crime lab would have led to not producing it. They
must do it now, lest a jury wonder where the CSI stuff was, and assume that an absence of proof
is a proof of absence. . . . And really, that is the linchpin of the danger of the “CSI Effect”; a lack
of evidence which is expected by an amateur leads to the assumption that if the evidence existed
anywhere in the universe, the [advocate] would have offered it, which he or she did not, so
therefore it doesn’t exist and the claimed event never happened.

Richard Matthews, “The CSI Effect . . . in Civil Cases as Well as Criminal Ones,” The Jury
Expert, June 2007, at 10. Matthews warned that even in cases that do not appear technical in
nature, if any piece of the story or evidence occurs through technical means, such as an email,
jurors may expect a lavish presentation regarding the availability of the high-tech evidence and
mistake silence as proof of absence.

Managing Expectations Manifested by the CSI Effect

Regardless of your belief in the CSI Effect and/or the degree to which it may influence the jury,
the question becomes whether or not to alter trial strategy to counteract it. Several potential
tactics before, throughout, and/or at the conclusion of the trial may be employed as countermeasures to
potential CSI Effect issues in a given case.

Screening for Potential CSI Effect Issues

After living and breathing a case day in and day out for years, trial lawyers may lose some
perspective of the case, and a fresh set of eyes through the use of a consultant may be
beneficial. It may be a good idea to have a consultant review the case for potential CSI Effect
issues that are not anticipated by the trial lawyer.

Mock Jury
A mock jury can provide the opportunity to test your case and theories to identify any CSI
Effect issues and help you to understand how a lay jury will attempt to solve the case at issue.
Thus, a mock jury could help to identify CSI Effect or tech issues beforehand, making it
possible to be prepared for the potential issues at trial.

Voir Dire
Voir dire presents a unique opportunity to identify potential CSI Effect issues in a given case.
Questioning jurors regarding their occupation, spare-time activities, and personality type can
provide insight into their thought processes in general and, more specifically, their problemsolving
inclinations. Furthermore, jurors should be questioned regarding their education and/or
reliance on technology.

Juror questionnaires may also offer unique insight regarding potential jurors’ televisionwatching
or technology habits. Recently, potential jurors in the Conrad Murray trial were given
questionnaires that specifically asked if they watched CSI in preparation for presenting the
particular evidence taken from Michael Jackson’s bedroom that, unlike in CSI, does not clearly
show what caused Jackson’s death. Showbiz Tonight (HLN television broadcast, September
21, 2011). The advantages and disadvantages of maintaining jurors whose lists are topped
with high-forensic shows such as CSI should be carefully assessed in the context of a given
case.

Opening and Closing Statements

Opening and closing statements offer another opportunity to buffer the potential CSI Effect by
informing the jurors regarding the production or lack of scientific evidence in a particular case
and the implications or reasons for the same. Again, the importance of reminding the jury of
the appropriate burden in the respective criminal or civil case cannot be overstated. It will also be
important to realize that a juror may assume that the resources available in a murder case
are equally available in a contract case. Educating the juror with no legal education on the
particular case’s issues will be fundamental to removing or inhibiting the impressions largely
formed from the mass media.

Presentation of Exhibits
Where potential CSI Effect issues are present, carefully consider introducing offensive CSI
Effect tactics, such as presenting high-tech exhibits to demonstrate or simplify complex issues
in criminal and/or civil cases. This offensive strategy may, for example, impress a younger jury
that may be more reliant on technology and thus more susceptible to the CSI Effect.

Experts and Witnesses

If the case has the potential for CSI Effect issues, experts should be chosen carefully.
Specifically, be prepared to question experts directly about the absence of scientific evidence.
In fact, some trial lawyers now utilize “negative-evidence witnesses” to inform jurors that it is
not rare that real investigators fail to find physical evidence. In the civil context, during the
presentation of evidence through witnesses, trial lawyers may lessen the effect of any
preconceived notions regarding the nature of the evidence to be presented at trial by simply
reminding the jury that the type of evidence they have come to expect as seen on television
will not be seen in the respective trial.

Cross-Examination
The cross-examination of witnesses and experts provides another potential avenue to
emphasizing the lack of evidence or the presence of evidence to the jury. It also allows an
avenue to respond to the opposition’s utilization of certain scientific evidence presented at trial
and allows for a counter of any CSI Effect issues introduced by the opposition. Specifically, the
opponent’s experts should be cross-examined regarding the reliability of the high-tech
evidence at issue or, in the context of witnesses, as to the types of testing performed or not
performed that jurors may know (or think) is available.

Jury Instructions
Certain measures should be taken to lessen the CSI Effect on the verdict or judgment at the
close of trial and on the commencement of jury deliberations. Specifically, request jury
instructions that are written clearly and simplistically, without references to unnecessary legal
jargon, to avoid miscomprehension of the laws the jurors are instructed to apply. This practice
is not exclusive to deliberation time—jurors should be informed as to the law of the particular
case both before and after the trial to ensure they understand the legal principles of the case
throughout the trial and to minimize any unreasonable expectations they may have by virtue of

Conclusion
While the CSI Effect may not necessarily be the direct effect of watching the CSI program aired
on CBS, the cultural phenomenon resulting from broad cultural changes, enhanced by mass
media and television programs, cannot be ignored. Rather than fight against this growing mindset,
trial lawyers should adapt their trial skills to manage unrealistic expectations and ensure
that the cornerstone of deductive reasoning in our legal system is not buried by potentially
inadmissible evidence and/or lost to fallible science and technology. There is an obvious
increase in pressure and attention on the use of modern science in the courtroom. The CSI
Effect influences all trial participants in the context of a jury trial—the prosecution and the
defense in criminal cases, the plaintiff and the defendant in civil cases, and the presiding judge
in both criminal and civil cases. While the CSI Effect is usually described as a defendant’s
advantage given that jurors are reluctant to convict or find liable without some clear and
definite evidence, it can also cut the other way where jurors are more likely to accept and give
credit or attach relevance to the scientific evidence.

Trial lawyers should be prepared to manage juror’s expectations resulting from the CSI Effect
by utilizing certain questioning of prospective jurors on voir dire, by reconfiguring opening and
closing statements, by tailoring the examination of witnesses and experts, by introducing
offensive CSI Effect evidence and/or negative evidence, and by calling for certain jury
instructions regarding the presence or absence of certain scientific evidence.

Keywords: litigation, trial evidence, CSI Effect, forensics, jurors

Katie L. Dysart practices in the Advocacy Group of Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz’s
New Orleans, Louisiana, office.

Copyright © 2017, American Bar Association. All rights reserved. This information or any portion
thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or downloaded or stored in an
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Association. The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect
the positions or policies of the American Bar Association, the Section of Litigation, this committee, or the
employer(s) of
Article Questions: Managing the CSI Effect in
Jurors
Read the article, “Managing the CSI Effect in Jurors” to answer the following questions in
complete sentences!

The article can be found here:

http://apps.americanbar.org/litigation/committees/trialevidence/articles/winterspring2012-0512-
csi-effect-jurors.html

1. According to the article, what is the “CSI Effect”?

2. According to the vice president of the National District Attorney Association, what do
jurors expect to have at a trial?

3. After being polled, explain why jurors on the Casey Anthony case found her “not guilty”.

4. Explain how the “CSI effect” affects the jury’s understanding of “reasonable doubt.”

5. Choose and discuss 2 potential tactics that could be used to counter the “CSI Effect” in a
given case.
Name: Date: Period:

CSI Exit Slip

1. What is biased?

2. Do you think preconceived notions from television shows cause jurors in modern day
American Society to have biased? Explain.

3. Should a person have a biased if they are to be on a jury why/why not?

Name: Date: Period:

CSI Exit Slip

1. What is biased?

2. Do you think preconceived notions from television shows cause jurors in modern day
American Society to have biased? Explain.

3. Should a person have a biased if they are to be on a jury why/why not?