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I can notice if a student is paying attention or perhaps unsure about the material.

You are likely assessing facial expressions and fidgeting body movements; you are likely to be close to 100% correct that your student is confused.

My classroom perceptions are far different than discerning if a criminal defendant is guilty based on courtroom observations.

I don't accept that premise. In what ways are your classroom perceptions so different from perceptions made in a criminal case? You're watching facial expressions and body language in class now.

I submit the talent it takes to assess facial expressions and body language in a criminal case is quite similar to the talent it takes to determine whether a student seeking relief from penalty due to an extenuating circumstance (e.g., "the dog ate my homework," or "my work is late because of 'X'"). Particularly as a teacher, I submit you're doing it whether you consciously acknowledge it or not.

I do not know about any research supporting your assertion that the jurors can reliably infer guilt or innocence based on courtroom perceptions.

Bill O'Reilly routinely features the "body language" segment on his show. Israeli flight passenger screeners are masters of assessing body language, facial expressions, and interview testimony of passengers on a daily basis. What sort of formal research must be accomplished to prove something which by so many measures and examples is so obvious to so many?

Research indicates that law enforcement cannot reliably discern if suspects are lying so I do not have much confidence that jurors can determine guilt based on courtroom behavior.

FReegards!

You keep throwing around this "research" term. What "research" could you possibly be referring to? Tell that to Israeli flight screeners and criminal profilers and I am certain that having seen both in action and the Israelis up close and personal, they would likely disagree with what ever "research" you can produce on the subject of determining innocence or guilt using facial expressions and body language.

You can easily search yourself. You do not need to rely on my expertise. Here is a link to an interview with a former FBI agent with lots of expertise about interviewing subjects and counter intelligence. He makes some excellent points. His conclusion is similar to the conclusion that I had stated but he also provides evidence from his experience that skilled interviewers can make some inferences that are helpful. Much knowledge about deception detection is classified so the strong statements by this former FBI agent provide lots of weight about consensus in intelligence communities. There is lots of research and development in universities and private labs to assist law enforcement with detecting deception.

http://www.hirebetterblog.com/interviewing/detecting-deception-part-1-of-4-navarro/

The juror's remarks are a much different story however. I am not sure if this is a professional juror. Some countries use professional jurors not citizen jurors. The court room situation is much different than law enforcement conducting interviews. I have not examined research about juror reasoning. I suspect that jurors make inferences based on defendant courtroom behavior. However, I believe it is dangerous for jurors to engage in this reasoning because other research on the difficulty to detect lies does not provide any confidence that jurors can reliably make inferences about guilt or innocence with this information.