Author: Becky HarperPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Jury
Languages : en
Pages : 124
Book Description
The Influence of Extralegal Factors on Juror Decision-making
Author: Becky HarperThe Effect of Extra Legal Influences on Juror Decision Making
Author: Nora L. BenskoPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bias (Law)
Languages : en
Pages : 168
Book Description
Extra-legal Influences, Group Processes, and Jury Decision-making
Author: David T. WassermanPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Jury
Languages : en
Pages : 64
Book Description
The effects of legal and extralegal factors on juror attribution of criminal responsibility
Author: Ronald Lynn PoulsonThe Effects of Legal and Extra-legal Factors on Prosecutorial and Jury Decision Making in Post-Furman Texas Capital Cases
Author: Jonathan Roger SorensenPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Capital punishment
Languages : en
Pages : 140
Book Description
"I Feel Your Pain"
Author: Christopher M. BellasPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Empathy
Languages : en
Pages : 110
Book Description
Juries bear the responsibility of whether or not to sentence a defendant to life or death. Legal and extralegal factors which impact jurors' decision-making are important for understanding how they reach their final decision. One theoretical explanation as to how jurors reach their sentencing decision is structural aggravation. The theory states that trials are designed to stress the dehumanizing qualities of both the defendant as well as the crime, while at the same time emphasizing empathy for the victim. This study tests the latter part of structural aggravation. The hypothesis is that jurors who possess empathy for the victims in homicide cases, will be more receptive to aggravating evidence presented to them during the trial. This dissertation utilized data from the Capital Jury Project, which gathers both quantitative and qualitative information about jurors' experiences in capital cases. Information was obtained from 667 jurors in 14 states. Hierarchical regression was used to test whether or not juror empathy for the victim impacted their receptivity to aggravation. The findings suggest that jurors who possess empathy for victims are not more likely to be receptive to aggravating evidence. What did matter however were the gender of the juror and the severity of the crime. The more severe the crime, the more receptive the juror was to aggravating evidence. The gender of the juror was also significant. Male jurors were more receptive to aggravation. Because race and to a lesser extent gender, have been important factors in capital sentencing outcomes, several demographic variables were combined to test for an interactive effect on receptivity to aggravating evidence. The model disclosed no such interaction effect. While jurors who express empathy for the victim are not more receptive to aggravating evidence, there is still limited support for Haney's structural aggravation theory. Prosecutors, by stressing the severity of the crime in both the guilt and penalty phases, affect juror decision-making in that jurors are more receptive to aggravation evidence and thus more likely to sentence the defendant to death.
Jury Interactions
Author: Brianne Philippe-BelislePublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
This thesis examines the existence of an interaction between the gender of the defence attorney and the crime domain of the accused person represented by the defence attorney when predicting juror verdict, juror certainty in his/her verdict and juror perceptions of the credibility of the defence attorney. More broadly, this study explores a possible gender-domain congruency effect on juror decision-making and whether jurors apply gender schemas when processing information presented by male versus female attorneys in particular crime domains. Specifically, this investigation hypothesizes that in cases in which female defence attorneys represent crimes perceived to be in an area of women's expertise, jurors resort to gender stereotypes, perceiving them as not only more credible than male defence attorneys but also more likely to find the accused person not guilty as well as have a greater degree of certainty in this verdict. To test this theory, an Ottawa community sample of 80 jury-eligible participants read one of four online case vignettes in which the crime domain and the gender of the defence attorney varied. Findings demonstrate a significant main effect of gender whereby mock jurors are more likely to impose a guilty verdict with a male versus a female defence attorney. Further, the crime domain of the accused person whom the defence attorney represents emerged as a significant main effect predicting the perceived credibility of the defence attorney. That is, regardless of gender, the defence attorney was perceived as more credible when representing the defendant accused of aggravated assault than of sexual assault. However, a significant interaction effect of the gender of the defence attorney and crime domain was not found. The implications of these findings as they relate to the impact of extralegal factors on juror decision-making are discussed, particularly in light of the continuing existence of gender stereotypes and their ramifications for modern Canadian juries.
The Jury Under Fire
Author: Brian H. BornsteinPublisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190201347
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 417
Book Description
The Jury Under Fire reviews a number of controversial beliefs about juries that have persisted in recent years as well as the implications of these views for jury reform efforts. Each chapter focuses on a mistaken assumption or myth about jurors or juries, critiques the myth, and then uses social science research findings to suggest appropriate reforms.
Juvenile Court Judges and Their Concerns about Vulnerability, Experienced Uncertainty and the Law
Author: Jose Hugo VargasPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 380
Book Description
In American juvenile law, the judicial transfer decision, or waiver of jurisdiction, is a legal maneuver by which young offenders are diverted away from the juvenile justice system and subsequently processed and adjudicated within adult systems of law. Although transfer decisions have a long history in modern American jurisprudence, social science has largely neglected to perform a comprehensive inquiry of the social psychological underpinnings of judicial waivers. The extant social psycholegal research hints to potential links between transfer decision-making and three categories of variables: (a) terror management and social information-processing, (b) uncertainty management and attributional reasoning, and (c) statutory and nonstatutory sources of influence. Two social theories (i.e., the dual-process theory of proximal/distal defenses and uncertainty avoidance/causal attribution theory), as well as the literature on judicial waivers, provided three alternative predictions about the nature of the transfer decision-making process. The first theory predicts that implicit mortality salience (MS) cues activate the experiential system, including terror-reducing distal defenses. The processing of vulnerability cues by legal decision-makers could undermine their inferences about a given case and encourage biased decision-making via extralegal analysis. The second theory presumes that the social context of legal decision-making is inherently inexact or uncertain. To the extent that cases are perceived as ambiguous, legal decision-makers could be prompted to apply attributional reasoning styles designed to manage uncertainty, manage crime and improve the likelihood of identifying satisfactory decision-making outcomes. Finally, in contrast to both social theories, research purports that transfer decisions emerge from a reconciliatory-type process which differentially weighs a wide array of statutory and nonstatutory sources of influence. In order to examine the three variable-categories within the context of an ambiguous waiver of jurisdiction hearing, a two-part experimental approach was adopted. Most legal decision-making studies that have applied terror management theory have relied on traditional mortality salience (MS) induction methodologies (e.g., death essays) without consideration of natural "social ecologies" wherein MS processes occur. Study 1, a simple four-group experiment with 192 college student participants, compared the impact of traditional MS cues (i.e., death essays) versus ecological MS cues (i.e., death-laden prosecutorial statements) on mock-juror behavior. In Study 2, a mock-waiver hearing vignette was embedded in an experimental-based survey. Sixty-four juvenile court judges provided data regarding the relations between ecological MS induction, social information-processing mode, uncertainty management, attributional reasoning orientation, legal considerations (e.g., the Kent Guidelines), extralegal factors (e.g., punishment attitudes) and judicial transfers. In Studies 1 and 2, the Smith-Cribbie-Bonferroni adjusted partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) estimator was applied for all central statistical analyses. Findings from both studies indicate that legal decision-making is not affected by vulnerability concerns. Study 1 also failed to uncover evidence that the traditional and ecological MS cues were similar (compared to control conditions) in their effects on mock-juror decision making, calling into question certain assumptions about the methods commonly used in legal-related terror management studies. Finally, data from Study 2 do not support the contention that uncertainty-managing attributional processes were active during the transfer decision-making process. Instead, waiver decisions appear to emerge out of complex interactions involving particular legal and extralegal sources of influence. These sources of influence include global and specified retributive and deterrent-based attitudes, the degree of legal experience, the perceived utility of specific Kent Guidelines and perceptions toward both the prosecution and juvenile offender. The closing chapter reviews the limitations and implications of the entire investigation.
Sociological Characteristics and Their Influence on American Jury Verdicts
Author: Nellie Maher GoepferichPublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description