The goal of this research was to determine whether the size of the incentive (none, small, medium, or large, in terms of sentence reduction) a jailhouse informant receives for testifying, as well as scientific expert testimony regarding the fundamental attribution error, would influence mock juror decision-making in a criminal trial involving a secondary confession. Participants read a murder trial transcript involving informant testimony in which incentive size and expert testimony were manipulated and then provided verdict judgments, made attributions for the informant's decision to testify, and rated the informant and expert on a number of dimensions. Neither expert testimony nor size of incentive had a direct influence on verdicts. However, contrary to previous research on the influence of incentives on jurors' perceptions of secondary confessions, the presence of an incentive did influence verdict decisions, informant ratings, and attributional responses. Results imply that jury-eligible community members may be becoming aware of the issues with informant testimony as a function of incentive but that they are insensitive to the size of the incentive, and expert testimony may not sensitize them to the limitations of such testimony.
The purpose of the present studies is to examine the influence of crime scene familiarity on mock jurors' decisions. Study 1 also examines eyewitness age and number of descriptor errors. In Study 2, the type of descriptor reported and the number of descriptor errors are examined. The participants were given a trial transcript involving a robbery. No effect of eyewitness age or crime scene familiarity was observed in Study 1; however, descriptor errors were found to decrease the number of guilty verdicts for the defendant. In Study 2, when crime scene descriptors were discussed by the eyewitness, crime scene familiarity was found to be influential such that when the eyewitness was familiar with the crime scene and reported crime scene descriptors with no errors, mock jurors were more likely to render a guilty verdict compared to when there were errors. These results suggest that an eyewitness' familiarity with the crime scene does have the potential to influence mock jurors' decisionmaking.
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