A fair, unbiased jury that follows the courts instructions is a crucial aspect of the American criminal justice system, mandated by both the California and United States Constitution. When jurors violate judicial instructions, it can jeopardize the impartiality of a case. Despite this, little research has been completed on what individual differences are indicative of greater willingness to commit jury misconduct. Misconduct can occur when jurors fail to follow judicial instructions in circumstances that a reasonable person may be tempted to disobey. This study explores potential individual differences that correlate with a greater likelihood of excusing and even committing juror misconduct under specific circumstances. Participants (N = 148) in an online survey read one of six vignettes relating to a mock court case. These vignettes either presented clear or confusing information, and included one of three types of juror misconduct witness [googled a term, talked to their spouse about the case, or went to the crime scene]. Neither the severity of the juror misconduct nor the clarity of expert testimony significantly affected participant’s perceptions of the behavior. However, participants Right Wing Authoritarianism and Belief in a Just World scores did affect their likelihood of reporting the juror misconduct as well as influenced their report of whether they would engage in these behaviors.

The impact of race within the American criminal justice system has seen long-term debate and has been studied by numerous social scientists. This dissertation examines the criminal justice system by analyzing data created by the Tennessee courts to determine whether race impacts the administration of Tennessee’s death penalty. This dissertation examines whether race impacts the overall administration of Tennessee’s death penalty, a Tennessee prosecutor’s decision to seek death, and a Tennessee jury’s decision to impose death. The impact of race at each stage is analyzed by logistic regression to isolate the defendant’s race, the victim’s race, and the racial interaction between them. Prior empirical research shows black defendants whose victims are white are more likely to receive death than white defendants whose victims are white. Prior research shows defendants whose victims are white, regardless of the race of the defendant, are more likely to receive death than when victims are black. The regression analyses reveal after controlling for heinousness of crime and the defendant’s dangerousness that race is not a predictive factor in whether defendants are sentenced to death in the overall application of the death penalty. The findings show that white victim murders, irrespective of the defendant’s race, have slight predictive power in whether prosecutors seek the death penalty, but white victim cases have the least predictive power of all variables that impact prosecutorial decisions. Murders involving black defendants and white victims, irrespective of their racial relationship, decrease the likelihood a jury will return a death sentence. When testing the racial interaction of defendants and victims, the only relationship that is a significant predictor in the Tennessee death penalty are murders with white defendants and white victims. Based on qualitative data from interviews with Knox County criminal court judges, this can be explained by heinousness of crime.

In self-defense cases of battered women who kill their abusive husbands, defendants have used Battered Woman Syndrome (BWS) expert testimony to help justify their acts of self-defense. However, past research demonstrates that BWS is ineffective in persuading jurors because it pathologizes the defendant rather than rationalizing her behavior. Additionally, BWS highlights passive (i.e., stereotypical) features of a battered woman, and such testimony may not apply to a defendant with active (i.e., atypical) features of a battered women. The current study hypothesized that another type of expert testimony, Social-Agency Framework (SAF), will persuade jurors to render more lenient verdicts, and that the defendant’s passive or active response history will affect verdict decisions. Additionally, a meditational model predicted that the effect of mock jurors’ gender on verdict decisions will be mediated by their attitudes toward battered women. In a 3(expert testimony: BWS vs. SAF vs. control) x 2(response history: passive vs. active) x 2(gender: male vs. female) model, jury-eligible participants (expected N = 510) recruited from the website mTurk answered a survey measuring their attitudes toward battered women, read a mock trial transcript, and rendered a verdict. The results indicated non-significant findings for the effects of expert testimony and response history on verdict outcomes. A full mediation was found, indicating that gender acted as a proxy for jurors’ attitudes, influencing their verdict decisions. This study has strong legal implications that highlight the prevailing effect of attitudes and how those attitudes may override the effects of expert testimony and defendant response history.

Thèse de doctorat : Psychologie : Rennes 2 : 2007. / Bibliogr. f 429-452. Index des auteurs. Annexes.

This study analyzed case and sentencing data from 632 capital cases involving Black and White defendants and victims, processed in North Carolina from May 1990 through December 2002. Logistic regression analysis of all cases and race-specific data allowed assessment of the variable effects of jury acceptance of statutory aggravating and mitigating factors on capital sentencing outcomes (death versus life). The purpose was to evaluate the role race plays in shaping jury use of legally defined factors in capital sentencing. Significant variance in the effect of jury acceptance of aggravators was observed between Black and White defendants. Black defendants pay a higher premium in terms of the risk of a death sentence than do White defendants whose crimes are comparably aggravated. There was no overall disparity in the effect of jury acceptance of mitigatory factors observed, although certain mitigators reduced the risk of a death sentence significantly more for Black or White. Overall, the aggravators had a statistically significantly stronger effect on sentencing outcomes than did the mitigators, regardless of race, and on cases involving Black defendants, regardless of victim race. Racial invariance was not shown.

Disparities in the administration of capital punishment are a prominent social and political issue. While the focus of death penalty disparity research initially lay with the defendant and how the defendant’s race or ethnicity affects sentencing outcomes, only marginal support for offender effects has been found. A consistent finding, however, is that victim race has a significant effect on capital sentencing outcomes. Recent examinations of the joint effects of victim characteristics indicate that victim gender also has some influence in capital sentencing decisions. While these prior studies have examined the interactive effects of victim gender and victim race the current study proposes that victim-related variables other than race may be important components in understanding the female victim effect. This analysis is focused on understanding the joint effects of victim gender in terms of identifying an “innocent female victim” effect. Based on prior studies and theoretical perspectives, three hypotheses are proposed and tested here using a sub-population of capital cases in North Carolina between the years 1990 and 2007: 1. Cases with a female victim and male defendant will be more likely to result in the death penalty than other defendant-victim gender dyads, 2. Cases with a female victim and stranger defendant will be more likely to result in the death penalty than other dyads, and 3. Cases with a female victim who was not involved in illegal activity at the time of her victimization will be more likely to result in the death penalty than other dyads. The results indicate that victim conduct (illegal activity) and victim gender both play a role in jury sentencing recommendations, but regardless of victim conduct, cases with a female victim are the most likely to result in the death penalty. Therefore, this study finds marginal support for an “innocent female victim” effect in jury decisions to recommend the death penalty, but consistent support for a “female victim” effect. Conclusions and implications of the findings are discussed.

published_or_final_version / Sociology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

If Aristotle was right in claiming that the aim of moral philosophy is to help us determine how we ought to live, then part of the aim of moral philosophy must be to help us improve our prescriptive accounts of moral decision making--our accounts of how we should make moral decisions. In my dissertation I examine implications of empirical research in cognitive science, social psychology, and decision theory for issues in moral decision making. I argue that empirical evidence suggests that principled guidance is in fact beneficial for decision making, which calls into question particularist prescriptive accounts. I also argue that contrary to the prevailing view, research suggests that taking a first-person perspective when making judgments about what we ought to do might actually help us make better moral judgments. Additionally, I argue that jurors will be more likely to make fairer and more accurate judgments by taking the perspective of the defendant than by trying to maintain a detached and 'objective' point of view.

How can empirical science, and psychology in particular, be harnessed to avoid or eliminate unwanted biases? The body of work herein explores this question across twelve experiments. The first approach we consider is placing the onus on the individual to root out any already existing bias within him or herself. Chapter 3, for example, presents experiments that assess whether people (viz., jurors during voir dire) can accurately "self-diagnose" when they are irreparably biased by negative pretrial publicity. (The answer is a resounding no). A second approach is to try and avoid letting bias enter the courtroom in the first place. Chapter 4, for example, provides an experimental test of an institutional solution known as blind expertise, wherein certain biases of an expert witness are avoided by having an intermediary pick the expert, and then having the expert render an opinion before knowing which litigant made the request. In Chapter 7, we consider a third approach to handling bias, one that concedes it will exist in the courtroom. Namely, instruct jurors on the existence of bias, so that they can try to weigh it properly. To this end we test a recently enacted New Jersey instruction on eyewitness testimony. We find that jurors do not become more sensitive to low versus high evidence quality, but instead they discount the eyewitness testimony across the board. Across this inquiry, we deploy several novel tactics; in Chapter 5, for instance, we explore how continuous response measurement (CRM) can provide unique insights into the study of reasoning, and in particular how jurors parse trial evidence. We end in chapter 8 with a more general discussion of how behavioral science can be applied across law and policy.

My thesis critically examines the role that the U.S. Supreme Court's "death is different" jurisprudence has played in the development of life without parole (LWOP) sentencing.