INTRODUCTION The influence of defendant gender and crime types towards juror decisions. Jury trials play a centrally important role in the law, therefore it is crucial for the juror to stay neutral in making decision. However, several research shows that stereotyping is one of the most debatable issues related to juries’ decision (Bornstein & Greene, 2011). In refer to Bornstein and Greene (2011), the stereotype that females and males generally labelled in specific crime be likely to be true in the largest sense. Thus, the significance of this study is to examine the effect of stereotype in defendant gender and crime types on the juror decision. McCoy and Gray (2007) examined the impact of defendant gender and relationship to victim on juror decisions in a child sexual abuse case. They manipulated the gender of the defendant (male or female) and the relationship (parent or stranger) to the abused child and ask the participants to be as mock jurors to rate the likelihood of guiltiness and their believability in each case. The results in McCoy and Gray (2007) study was that female defendants were less likely to be found guilty than were male defendants in an alleged child sexual assault case. While in the aspect of believability, despite of the male jurors, female jurors rated the victim as more convincing than the defendant. In relation to this topic, stereotyping theory has also been examined in the context of defendant race and crime type. Gordon et al. (1988) created a comparison between the race of defendant either black or white and the type of crime (burglary or embezzlement) with the rating of the participants on jail sentences. In support of the stereotype theory, the black burglar was rated to receive longer jail sentences... ... middle of paper ... ...of defendant. For improvement in later research on this topic, simulation of real condition to the participants is highly recommended for better result as this will taking account the aspect of emotional pressure that leads to stereotyping in real situation. REFERENCES Bornstein, B. H., and E. Greene. "Jury Decision Making: Implications For and From Psychology." Current Directions in Psychological Science 20.1 (2011): 63-67. Print. Gordon, R. A., Bindrim, T. A., McNicholas, M. L., & Walden, T. L. (1988). Perceptions of blue-collar and white-collar crime: The effect of defendant race on simulated juror decisions. The Journal of Social Psychology, 128(2), 191-197 McCoy, M. L. and J. M. Gray (2007). The impact of defendant gender and relationship to victim on juror decisions in a child sexual abuse case. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 37(7), 1578 - 1593.
There have been different outcomes for different racial and gender groups in sentencing and convicting criminals in the United States criminal justice system. Experts have debated the relative importance of different factors that have led to many of these inequalities. Minority defendants are charged with ...
“A report by the United States General Accounting Office in 1990 concluded that 82 percent of the empirically valid studies on the subject show that the race of the victim has an impact on capital charging decisions or sentencing verdicts or both” (86).
Costanzo, M., & Krauss, D. (2012). Forensic and Legal Psychology: Psychological Science Applied to Law. New York: Worth Publishers.
... Cat. I am a cat. No. 4510.0, [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/2EFA897EF863196CCA2575CA00146304/$File/45100_2008.pdf, [Accessed 13 April 2011]. Taylor, N 2007, ‘Juror attitudes and biases in sexual assault cases’, Trends and issues in crime and criminal justice, no. 1 (pp. 113-117).
Zillman, Bryant (1982) The Impact of Heavy Viewing of Pornography on Jurors Decision. Journal of Communication, v40, pp.165-7.
Race and Ethnicity on Sentence Outcomes Under Different Sentencing Systems. Crime & Delinquency, 59(1), 87-114.
In modern-day America the issue of racial discrimination in the criminal justice system is controversial because there is substantial evidence confirming both individual and systemic biases. While there is reason to believe that there are discriminatory elements at every step of the judicial process, this treatment will investigate and attempt to elucidate such elements in two of the most critical judicial junctures, criminal apprehension and prosecution.
Juror #10, a garage owner, segregates and divides the world stereotypically into ‘us’ and ‘them.’ ‘Us’ being people living around the rich or middle-class areas, and ‘them’ being people of a different race, or possessing a contrasting skin color, born and raised in the slums (poorer parts of town). It is because of this that he has a bias against the young man on trial, for the young man was born in the slums and was victim to domestic violence since the age of 5. Also, the boy is of a Hispanic descent and is of a different race than this juror, making him fall under the juror’s discriminatory description of a criminal. This is proven on when juror #10 rants: “They don’t need any real big reason to kill someone, either. You know, they get drunk, and bang, someone’s lying in the gutter… most of them, it’s like they have no feelings (59).
New Century Foundation. (2005). The Color of Crime: Race, Crime and Justice in America. Retrieved from http://www.colorofcrime.com/colorofcrime2005.pdf
Stevenson, D 2012, The function of uncertainty within jury systems, George Mason Law Review, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 513-548, viewed 6 May 2014, .
Famous writer Robert Frost stated, “A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.” While selecting a competent lawyer is important, in the court of law, the process of jury selection is easily one of the most important factors. While many elements are considered during the process of jury selection, the most valuable is the use of psychology. Psychology is used by lawyers during the process of jury selection to choose the best possible jurors to decide the fate of their client. Psychology can be used in many different ways such as voir dire, persuasion, and research.
Although the United States system is based on the connotation of innocent until proven guilty and justice being blind to things such as race, ethnicity or social class (Kornblum & Julian), evidence proves otherwise. Racially discriminatory sentencing in non-capital cases demonstrated that young, black and Latino males receive a much harsher sentence, especially if unemployed compared to white offenders. The race of the victim also dictates the sentence. If the victim is white, than the black offender is much more likely to receive a harsher sentence than blacks who commit crimes against blacks. If the murdered victim is white, the offender has higher probabilities of receiving the death penalty (The Sentencing Project). Race is an indisputable factor in the sentencing process and teaches that black lives are not as important as those of
Regan, P.C. & Baker, S.J. (1998). The impact of child witness demeanor on perceived credibility and trial outcome in sexual abuse cases. Journal of Family Violence, 13(2), 187-195.
Before the jury stands the defendant. There is overwhelming evidence in the favor of the prosecution. The verdict comes back from the jury, not guilty. Why? The defendant is a woman. In our era of equal rights and civil liberties women have made great strides in their advancement and role in society, yet it seems that gender segregates when it comes to crime. There have been countless cases where women and men have been tried for the same crime, yet when it comes to verdict and sentencing, the results don’t necessarily match. If one commits a crime one should be punished accordingly regardless of gender. In our society we seem to have two separate rules for our criminals, one for men and one for women. The key issue is are men and women treated equally by the criminal justice system. Another issue in gender biased sentencing is in its is its severity. Are women sentenced heavier for certain crimes then men.
Greene, E., Heilbrun, K., Fortune, W. H., & Nietzel, M. T. (2006). Psychology and the legal system (6th ed.). Florence, KY: Cengage Learning.