The Impact of Social Stereotypes on Juror´s Decisions

561 Words2 Pages

The amount of Psychological research about the impact of social stereotypes on juror’s decisions is increasing. Previous studies have looked at everything from the effect of differences in social categories (Deaux, K, 1984) to the gender of the perpetrator (e.g., Clark, H.L., & Nightingale, N.N., 1997; Mallozi, J., McDermott, V., & Kayson, W . A., 1990). The current study questions whether or not male defendants are always more likely to be found guilty compared to female defendants, or does the match with the crime type matter? Jurors are randomly selected citizens who are given the task of determining whether someone is guilty or not, based solely on the evidence provided by the court. (Functions and Duties of a Juror, n.d.) However, jurors, who like all other humans, have the potential to be biased, meaning that their final decision can sometimes be influenced by many factors.

The Effect of Defendant Race on Simulated Juror Decisions
In 1998, a study on the perception of blue-collar and white-collar crime and ‘The Effect Defendant Race on Simulated Juror Decisions’ was conducte...

Show More
Related

  • Diversity within the Criminal Justice System

    2181 Words  | 5 Pages

    Ward, G., Farrell, A., & Rousseau, D. (2009). Does racial balance in workforce representation yield equal justice? Race relations of sentencing in federal court organizations. Law & Society Review, 43(4), 757-806. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5893.2009.00388.x

    Read More

  • Analysis Of When A Heart Turns Solid Rock By Timothy Black

    1057 Words  | 3 Pages

    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 ...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Bryan Stevenson's Close To Death: Reflections On Race And Capital Punishment

    1861 Words  | 4 Pages

    “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).

    Read More

  • The Judicial Process and Batson Case

    2726 Words  | 6 Pages

    Despite the efforts of lawyers and judges to eliminate racial discrimination in the courts, does racial bias play a part in today’s jury selection? Positive steps have been taken in past court cases to ensure fair and unbiased juries. Unfortunately, a popular strategy among lawyers is to incorporate racial bias without directing attention to their actions. They are taught to look for the unseen and to notice the unnoticed. The Supreme Court in its precedent setting decision on the case of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), is the first step to limiting racial discrimination in the court room. The process of selecting jurors begins with prospective jurors being brought into the courtroom, then separating them into smaller groups to be seated in the jury box. The judge and or attorneys ask questions with intent to determine if any juror is biased or cannot deal with the issues fairly. The question process is referred to as voir dire, a French word meaning, “to see to speak”. During voir dire, attorneys have the right to excuse a juror in peremptory challenges. Peremptory challenges are based on the potential juror admitting bias, acquaintanceship with one of the parties, personal knowledge of the facts, or the attorney believing he/she might not be impartial. In the case of Batson v. Kentucky, James Batson, a black man, was indicted for second-degree burglary and receipt of stolen goods. During the selection of the jury the prosecutor used his peremptory challenges to strike out all of the four black potential jurors, leaving an all white jury. Batson’s attorney moved to discharge the venire, the list from which jurors may be selected, on the grounds that the prosecutor’s peremptory challenges violated his client’s Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to have a jury derived from a “cross-section of the community”(People v. Wheeler, 583 P.3d 748 [Calif. 1978]). The circuit court ruled in favor of the prosecutor and convicted Batson on both counts. This case went through the courts and finalized in the U.S. Supreme Court.

    Read More

  • Research on Jury Bias

    1339 Words  | 3 Pages

    In conclusion, we have seen that the race of the victim and the emotionality of the victim impact statements highly affects the jury’s empathy and therefore might influence their decision making. Understanding the interaction between the racial in-group/out-group and empathy may allow defense attorneys to lead jurors for harsher punishments for out-group racial groups and more lenient punishments for in-groups by playing on juror empathy and thus putting emotions before law and reason. Consequently, in any capital punishment case, race of the victim and race of the jury, could be the difference between life and death for a defendant and therefore needs to be studied further.

    Read More

  • Sexual Assault in Australia

    715 Words  | 2 Pages

    ... 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).

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Molly Treadway Johnson's Memory Phenomena In The Law

    1006 Words  | 3 Pages

    Jurors opinions can be influenced by an emotional testimony. Deborah W. Denno’s article Neuroscience, Cognitive Psychology, and the Criminal Justice System is the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law’s publication of a panel at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools. The panel had three goals: “examine the interrelationship between neuroscience and substantive criminal law; to incorporate criminal procedure more directly into the examination in a way that past investigations have not done; and to scrutinize cognitive bias in decision-making,” (Denno

    Read More

  • racial profiling

    1016 Words  | 3 Pages

    A study of race and jury trials in Florida published last year in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, found that “conviction rates for black and white defendants are similar when there is at least some representation of blacks in the jury pool.” But all-white juries are a very different story—they convict blacks 16% more often than they convict whites (2).

    Read More

  • Racial Discrimination in the U.S. Justice System

    4767 Words  | 10 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Analysis of the Jurors in 12 Angry Men

    617 Words  | 2 Pages

    Guilty or not guilty? This the key question during the murder trial of a young man accused of fatally stabbing his father. The play 12 Angry Men, by Reginald Rose, introduces to the audience twelve members of a jury made up of contrasting men from various backgrounds. One of the most critical elements of the play is how the personalities and experiences of these men influence their initial majority vote of guilty. Three of the most influential members include juror #3, juror #10, and juror #11. Their past experiences and personal bias determine their thoughts and opinions on the case. Therefore, how a person feels inside is reflected in his/her thoughts, opinions, and behavior.

    Read More

  • Racial Inequalities in the Justice System

    1738 Words  | 4 Pages

    New Century Foundation. (2005). The Color of Crime: Race, Crime and Justice in America. Retrieved from http://www.colorofcrime.com/colorofcrime2005.pdf

    Read More

  • The Issue of Pretrial Publicity

    1935 Words  | 4 Pages

    Hoiberg, B., & Stires, L. (1973). The effect of several types of pretrial publicity on the guilt attributions of simulated jurors. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 3(3), 267-275.

    Read More

  • Causes Of Racial Disparity In Drug Discrimination

    1239 Words  | 3 Pages

    While this journal shed some light on the racial disparity in the actual conviction process, the method used to gather the information for this journal only used three data sources. It gave factual statistics, but I would agree with the authors hypothesis that race/ethnicity could not be fully explained by controlling for an offender’s prior record, age, or gender.

    Read More

  • Forensic Psychologist In Jury Selection Process

    951 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the criminal justice system psychologist play several roles, but in the jury selection process they serve as a consultant. This essay will provide three instances of psychological concepts and illustrate how they are applied to the determination of juries. The essay will also address a common ethical obligation confronting psychologist in the areas of corrections, law enforcement, court systems, and academia.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Conformity In 12 Angry Men

    1115 Words  | 3 Pages

    576). In 12 Angry Men, the jury that is voting is a death-qualified jury and all but one wants to convict. They are more prejudiced towards this Hispanic boy who could very well be innocent. In Young’s (2004) study, he proved that death-qualified juries were more likely to have prejudiced views of minorities that they are more willing to convict. In this study, he took a poll that resulted in the death-qualified juries saying that it is worse to let the guilty go free than to convict an innocent person. In both the film and Young’s (2004) study, it is shown that death-qualified juries are very quick to convict when they have someone’s life in their

    Read More

More about The Impact of Social Stereotypes on Juror´s Decisions

Open Document