Psychodrama

I came across an interesting article about the use of a psychological technique called psychodrama during trial. Essentially the lawyer works to make himself more vulnerable in order to elicit an emotional connection with the jury. In my last post, I spoke about the use of humorous rhetoric to enhance the power of one's argument, but what about creating an emotional response? Are there limits to the use of humor or emotions? Is it OK to use personal stories of loss and tragedy during voir dire to elicit emotional reactions in the potential jury? To see who will cry? To see who remains stony cold? During my two days of jury duty, one of the criminal defense attorney's spent about 15 minutes leading us through a discussion about how different people make decisions. Do we use our minds? Did we think decisions should be logical or can we use our emotions to make decisions? Do we listen to others when making up our own minds? She was simultaneously trying to feel out the jury pool and trying to inform us of the way a jury should come to a decision. She wanted us to understand that a jury does not make a compromised decision (as is sometimes the case in other venues) but rather a unanimous decision.

The boundary between emotions and logic is an interesting question and I think I will give it some more thought in the coming months. The law requires logic so that we can have equal application. Emotions are too subjective to be used as legal standards, but emotions clearly have a place in the law. More to come. . .