Although juror decision making has probably attracted more attention from psychologists, economists, philosophers, mathematicians, and other scholars than any other decision making task, there are only a handful of models that have accrued any empirical support as descriptions of the psychological processes invoked to perform the task. The chapters in this edited book provide a thorough summary of all of the significant models of juror decision making. The chapters in the first half of the volume are descriptions of the models and the research that has been conducted to explicate and evaluate their merits as models of the decision process. The second half of the book is a collection of comments on the models and the enterprise of behavioral science research on juror decision making.

This book, like many other edited collections, is the result of a conference. However, unlike many conference books, it was not written in haste. Rather, the decision to create a book and the writing and revision process was extended over five years. Thanks to the National Science Foundation and Northwestern University, who funded the conference, there was no pressure to produce a report. It was the decision of the conference participants that something useful and possibly enduring could be written on the topic of theories of juror decision making.