Juries and Joined Trials

Joinder is a legal term that refers to the combination of several counts, parties, or indictments in a single trial. Although there has been limited empirical research examining joinder trials, the research that has been conducted has focused almost entirely on the [Page 393]influence of the inclusion of additional indictments on juror decision making. In this context, a joinder trial refers to a trial in which one defendant is tried for multiple offenses that have similar characteristics or arise from the same incident. The court has the discretion to try a defendant for each offense individually in separate trials or combine the offenses into a single trial if the offenses are related. However, there has been a general consensus among researchers that trials with joined ...