Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Public Defender Stuff

Criminal Law

: Public Defender Stuff

Are your jurors capable of murder?

By ambimb

Researchers in France recently created a “reality” quiz show “to see how far people would go in obeying authority, especially if television reinforces that authority.” The fictitious game show had all the trappings of a real TV quiz show, including a beautiful and well-known hostess, and a raucous audience. A group of contestants posed questions to a man sitting inside a box in front of them in an electric chair. The hostess and a chanting audience urged the players ? who had levers in front of them ? to send jolts of electricity into the man in the box when he gave an incorrect answer. Even when the player screamed out in pain for them to stop, 80 percent of the contestants kept zapping him. In reality, the man in the electric chair was an actor who wasn’t really being shocked ? but the players and the audience did not know that...continue to full post

Full post as published by Public Defender Stuff on March 22, 2010 (boomark / email).