Marion Wilson’s life began in instability and violence long before it ended in a Georgia execution chamber. His case is often remembered for the crime that brought him to death row, but its legal significance lies elsewhere—in what the courts concluded could not be shown about his life, and what that failure ultimately cost him….
In post-conviction proceedings, showing that a trial was defective is not enough. The petitioner must prove that the defect was harmful—that it had a substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict. Even for constitutional violations, the Supreme Court has made clear that reversal is not automatic. Instead, the petitioner bears the…
Florida has been on an execution spree—not of carrying out death sentences, but of handing them out. In recent years, the state has systematically expanded capital punishment, adding new eligible offenses including sexual abuse of children, mandating automatic death sentences for undocumented immigrants convicted of capital crimes, and reducing the jury threshold from unanimous to…
In science, medicine, and law, a basic principle holds true: a good test doesn’t always say “yes.” For a test to be useful, it must sometimes confirm a claim and sometimes reject it. A thermometer that always reads 98.6°F isn’t telling you who has a fever. A smoke detector that always goes off isn’t telling…
Based on an estimate of the proportion of jury-qualified adults who would find a defendant guilty, it is possible to estimate the probability of a guilty verdict. In other words, we can estimate the probability of a group decision based on the pre-deliberation preferences of individuals. You can simulate the estimation process for yourself. To…
When people think about post-conviction litigation in criminal cases, they often think of claims of actual innocence — efforts to prove that someone who was wrongfully convicted did not commit the crime at all. But a different and equally important type of claim focuses not on innocence, but on fairness — whether the defendant received…
On April 25, 2025, Fair Trial Analysis filed an Amicus Curiae Brief in Partial Support of Brenda Andrew’s Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (Case No. 15-6190). The Brief shares the results of a double-blind randomized experiment that had 1,128 jury-qualified adults, representative of Oklahoma…
Everyone deserves a fair trial. It’s a bedrock promise of the legal system—but one that’s often broken. Defendants raise constitutional violations all the time: unfair juries, withheld evidence, incompetent lawyers. But raising the issue isn’t enough. To prevail, one must prove whether those errors mattered—that there’s a reasonable probability the outcome would have been different…
On February 5, 2025, Fair Trial Analysis LLC filed an Amicus Curiae Brief in Support of Warren King’s Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus in the Superior Court of Butts County, Georgia (Case No. 2024-SU-HC-0010). The Brief shares the results of a double-blind randomized experiment that had 786 jury-qualified adults, representative of the county, vote…
Version 3.1.0 of sate, the software package for analyzing jury trials, is now available on CRAN. The package allows users to perform analysis with R, a free, open-source application for data analysis and graphing. Version 3.1.0 is a major update for faster, more precise solutions. It also features exciting new tools for analyzing trials with…