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The most recent edition of the NIJ Journal explores the “CSI Effect”:

Those ratings translated into this fact: five of the top 10 television programs that week were about scientific evidence in criminal cases. Together, they amassed more than 100 million viewers.

How many of those viewers reported for jury duty the next day?

The survey found:

It was not a surprise that Law & Order and CSI were the two most frequently watched law-related television programs (45 percent and 42 percent, respectively, of the surveyed jurors). We found that frequent CSI viewers also frequently watched other law-related programs, and those who did not watch CSI tended not to watch such programs. We also found that CSI viewers, in general, were more likely to be female and politically moderate. Respondents with less education tended to watch CSI more frequently than those who had more education.

but

There was scant evidence in our survey results that CSI viewers were either more or less likely to acquit defendants without scientific evidence. Only 4 of 13 scenarios showed somewhat significant differences between viewers and non-viewers on this issue, and they were inconsistent. Here are some of our findings:

In the “every crime” scenario, CSI viewers were more likely to convict without scientific evidence if eyewitness testimony was available.
In rape cases, CSI viewers were less likely to convict if DNA evidence was not presented.
In both the breaking-and-entering and theft scenarios, CSI viewers were more likely to convict if there was victim or other testimony, but no fingerprint evidence.

The data:

Is it a great design? Nope. There’s endogeneity everywhere here, no matter how much control the survey instrument affords. Is there an enterprising young labor economist out there?