Paper's abstract

Jon Elster, Publicity and secrecy in jury proceedings
There are many ambitious but unfeasible research programs with regard to the determination of a jury regime. This paper, limiting itself to the determinants of truth and rightness, deals with the relations between institutional, subjective and outcome variables at stake. It considers in particular the impact of institutional factors on the intermediate variables in several issues - being well understood that these factors turn, in very different ways, on the choice between secrecy and publicity and that these intermediate variables may have either a negative or a positive impact on the outcome. This paper concludes by underscoring the conjectural nature of many of the claims about the effects of secrecy and publicity. With regard to proposed regime change, it underlines the great advantage of status quo.

Key Words : Jury - secrecy – publicity
t. 53, 2010 : p. 212-239

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