jury decision making Flashcards
what is the common finding regarding race and its effect on jury decisions?
White juror’s have a negative bias towards black defendants - giving them harsher sentencing
what did Bradbury and Williams find?
Black defendants were less likely to be convicted by a jury composed with a higher proportion of black people in a mock trail - but more likely to be convicted by a higher proportion of white or Hispanic jury.
what did Abwender and Hough find?
they carried out a mock trial using black,white and Hispanic defendants and found that black juror’s showed bias to their own race, Hispanic juror’s were harsher on their own race and whites showed no racial bias.
skolnick and shaw?
found that white juror’s were more likely to find a black defendant not guilty that guilty. this was thought to be due to them not wanting to be considered racist.
the effect of attractiveness of jury decision making?
defendants are instructed to wear suits to court and trials even this isn’t how they usually would dress - in order to help reduce negative stereotypes. for example villains are usually portrayed as unattractive, untrustworthy. therefore the stereotype. the common findings are that a more attractive defendant will be less likely to be convicted.
in general how may appearance impact jury decision making?
defendants are advised to dress up smart for court to reduce negative stereotypes. as the media portrays villains as ugly and hero’s as beautiful. therefore generally the more attractive a person is the less likely they are to be convicted.
what did weitman and diamond find?
they found that when doing a meta-analysis on studies that looked at appearance, they found that the more attractive a defendant was the less likely it was for them to be found guilty. they also found that race and gender were less important factors in comparison to attractiveness.
what did Abwender and Hough find regarding appearance?
that when participants read a story of a murder with the defendant being either attractive or not attractive, females were more lenient to the more attractive defendant where as men showed the opposite.
Mcoy and Gray?
found that females are less likely to be convicted of sexual abuse of a child compared to men.
what did Ahola find?
they found that women received shorter sentencing that males on certain crimes - including homicide.
what did Dixon and mahoney find?
they studies whether accents played a role in finding someone guilty or not guilty. They looked particularly at the Birmingham accent and found that those with a story “brummie” accent were more likely to be found guilty than those with a non- Brummie accent.
what did Saladin et al 1988 find
showed ptps photos of 8 men and asked ptps to judge how capable they though they were to commit armed robbery
- they found that the least attractive males were found more likely to commit a crime
what did Mazzella and Feingold find?
- they found that the advantage of being attractive only works for some crimes such as rape and robbery./
what did Mossiere and Dalby find?
- they looked at the influence of age and gender or jury decision making and found that there was less influence of gender on their decision but more age was significant
- the older a defendent was the less likely they were to be convicted.
how can pre-trial publicity influence jury decision making?
- criminal cases are often documented by the media which means that the general public may of already formed negative or positive bias towards either the victim or defendant before the trial has begun
