I didn't mean to suggest that audience sentiment wouldn't have any effect at all. "Home team advantage" is about being able to reliably predict ahead of time wi

I didn't mean to suggest that audience sentiment wouldn't have any effect at all. "Home team advantage" is about being able to reliably predict ahead of time without even setting foot in the place which side is more likely to win. The team geographically associated with that place is more likely to win and there may be many different variables that impact that, such as familiarity with the stadium helping to give them a playing edge. There may well be courts where you can predict ahead of time who is likely to win based on skin color, type of case, etc. There probably are trends of that sort. But to make that prediction, you would need to know more about the court in question and the case in question than "who is from around here and who is visiting". If the question is really meant to ask "Will audience sentiment impact jury opinion?" that's entirely possible, but may not always be in the direction the audience would like. There will be a lot of factors there that impact if the audience reaction sways the jury or makes them dig their heels in further.