Understanding the limits of limiting instructions: Social psychological explanations for the failures of instructions to disregard pretrial publicity and other inadmissible evidence.

Inadmissible information may come in a variety of forms including pretrial publicity and in-court statements made by witnesses or attorneys. A number of remedies have been proposed for controlling the damaging effects of such evidence. When inadmissible information comes in the form of pretrial publicity, judges may issue a continuance or rely on voir dire to remove biased jurors. In addition, it has been argued that deliberations may serve as an effective remedy. Finally, judges may issue an admonition to disregard pretrial publicity or other inadmissible evidence presented in court. Empirical research has demonstrated that such safeguards are relatively ineffective and sometimes produce a backfire effect, resulting in jurors being more likely to rely on inadmissible information after they have been specifically instructed to disregard it. Several social psychological theories provide explanations for the failures of admonitions, including belief perseverance, the hindsight bias, reactance theory, and the theory of ironic processes of mental control. Existing inadmissible evidence research and relevant social psychological theories are reviewed. The article concludes with a discussion of theoretically based policy recommendations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)