How are limiting instructions used, and are they effective?
Can the court “unring a bell?” Limiting instructions are used to tell the jury to disregard something. The following articles address the topic of use and effectiveness of limiting instructions:Shari Seidman Diamond and Neil Vidmar, “Jury Room Ruminations on Forbidden Topics,” Virginia Law Review 87 (2001): 1857. Diamond and Vidmar examined videotaped jury deliberations in Arizona to determine the effect of procedures that “blindfold” jurors. One such procedure was limiting instructions. This topic is discussed at length, especially pages 1864-65, 1882, and 1905 (diagram). Diamond and Vidmar set Wigmore’s closed universe of evidence on its ear, concluding that jurors do bring their life experiences to the deliberation room.Roselle Wissler and Michael J. Saks, “On the Inefficacy of Limiting Instruction: When Jurors Use Prior Conviction Evidence to Decide on Guilt,” Law and Human Behavior 9 (March 1985): 37. Wissler and Saks propose that studies of FRE 609(a) never presume that jurors us
