#16 - Global Reference, Must Be True

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[Juanq42]

Hi!

I fell into the trap of Answer A for this question.

The third paragraph states:
"...jurors give undue weight to confession evidence when rendering guilt decisions."

I had assumed that "undue weight" meant: jurors give "more weight" to bartered testimonies that lead to confession evidence (when compared to non-bartered testimonies). Is the real flaw for answer choice A because it makes a relative claim about the confession evidence sources: via cooperating witness evidence and direct defendant evidence? The undue weight distinguishes between bartered and non-bartered testimonies and answer choice A tries to extend the weight to the evidence source?

Thanks for the help!

[James Finch]

Hi Juan,

It looks like the mistake you made was assuming that "undue weight" made a comparison between confessional and cooperating witness testimony. It doesn't, it just means that the author thinks too much weight is given to the confessional evidence by juries. We don't have any comparison as to how much weight the jury gives to the different types of evidence, only whether they weigh it too heavily or not in absolute terms. Contrast this to the correct answer, (D), which is clearly supported by the last sentence in the second paragraph.

Hope this helps!

[cargostud]

I consider this question to be fairly difficult. You are give a list of questions and then you are tasked with identifying which of the questions is explicitly addressed in the passage.

Firstly, forget that the answer choices are put in the form of a question. That structure is there just to trip you up. The important thing is to simply look for the content that is explicitly discussed in the passage.

[Claire Horan]

Hi Cargostud,

It's interesting that you find the structure of this question more challenging than others. Here's a suggestion. Since the question stem asks you to identify the question that is addressed in the passage, consider each answer choice one at a time. Sort contenders and losers by asking whether the passage is at all related to the questions. When you end up with a few contenders, choose the one where you can identify a line reference where the question is addressed. That's the right answer.

I hope this way of approaching the question streamlines the process for you and makes it less confusing! Good luck with your studies!

[g_lawyered]

Hi P.S.,
I had similar analysis to this question as @Juanq42 posted regarding answer A. I'm having trouble accepting this part of the explanation posted:

We don't have any comparison as to how much weight the jury gives to the different types of evidence, only whether they weigh it too heavily or not in absolute terms.

I found support for answer A in Paragraph 3 as @Juanq42 stated. And additional support that there isn't the "same weight" as answer A states in Paragraph 4 states: "mock jurors viewed a confession as evidence that the defendant committed the crime because “only a guilty person would confess to such a crime.” The same logic can be applied to the testimony of cooperating witnesses: jurors may presuppose that accomplice witnesses and jailhouse informants offer their testimony as atonement rather than deducing that external factors made it expedient to give the testimony".
I understood this to mean that jurors place more weight (negative weight) on defendant's confession evidence because paragraph 3 last sentence states "This is particularly relevant here because if people have difficulty realizing the effect that an incentive can have on a defendant’s behavior, they may also fail to realize the effect that an incentive may have on a cooperating witness’s behavior." I understood this to mean that jurors have a bias towards defendant's confession evidence because they ARE aware that defendant's have incentives and they AREN'T aware that cooperating witness have these incentives too- this is where the bias lies. With my analysis, I understood the passage to answer what A questions. The answer would be: No, jurors DON'T give the same weight to confession evidence provided from cooperating witness & defendant. Why is this incorrect? I think I'm misunderstanding the implications of what's stated in paragraph 3 and 4.
Can someone indicate why this doesn't support answer A?
Thanks in advance

[katehos]

Hi g_lawyered!

I think the first thing that's important to keep in mind is what the question itself is asking: what is explicitly addressed in the passage? So, we already know we're looking for something pretty easy to answer from reading the passage without much (if any) analysis at all.

When looking at answer choice (A), it definitely seems appealing because of the 'undue weight' mentioned in the passage. But, it's important to remember that we don't know how that weight compares to other types of confession evidence, just that it's more than the author would want in an abstract sense.

Another important distinction to make is that (A) is asking if jurors give the same weight to confession evidence by a cooperating witness and confession evidence offered by the accused; (A) is not asking if jurors give the same weight to cooperating witness testimony - which may or may not include confession evidence, according to line 10 - and confession evidence offered by the accused. While the latter might be answerable from the passage (as you've discussed a bit in your answer), the former is not. Ultimately, the author is definitely saying that jurors give a lot of weight to defendant's confessions and don't necessarily realize how incentives may affect both defendant's confessions and cooperating witness testimony in general, but, this still doesn't answer the question in (A).

Realistically, we can eliminate (A) with this in mind, but let's keep going to discuss more specifics of your analysis. Though you're correct that the author definitely believes jurors place lots of weight on defendant's confession evidence and do not place enough weight on incentives of cooperating witnesses that may bias their testimony, we still do not have any information on how these weights specifically compare to one another, nor do we have information about the weight of cooperating witness confession testimony specifically. To put it in different terms, we don't really know anything about the author's opinion on the weights given to different types of confession evidence in a scenario where both cooperating witness confession testimony and defendant confession testimony are elicited.

We do, however, know the answer to (D)! Lines 16-17 offer a simple answer: rarely!

I hope this helps!!
-Kate

[g_lawyered]

Hi Kate,
Thanks so much for clarifying that up for me! Very tricky wording always gets me.