Legal decision making among Korean and American legal professionals and lay people

Based on van Koppen and Penrod (2003)’s argument that the trial system with fewer wrongful convictions should be considered the “better” system, this study compared inquisitorial and adversarial trials by evaluating the quality of legal decision making of legal professionals and lay people in relation to the assessment of trial evidence and guilt probabilities in South Korea and the United States. Two legal decision making models suggest that inquisitorial trials yield higher guilt probabilities than adversarial trials. The introduction of expert testimony reduces the damaging effects of the confession evidence to a certain degree. When the confession evidence and the expert testimony are introduced in an adversarial trial, lay people utilize expert testimony to critically evaluate the confession evidence. Legal professionals and lay people evaluate and weigh evidence differently, but their overall performance is comparable. Implications for the Korean lay participation system are discussed.