Death penalty attitudes and juror decisions in australia

Abstract

Although Australia does not currently have a death penalty law, an increasing concern about violent crime has raised the possibility that capital punishment, abolished in the 1960s, may be reconsidered. to determine the death penalty attitudes and potential jury behaviour of younger Australians, who have grown up without capital punishment, an experiment was conducted with 166 Australians, aged 18 to 30 years. Jurors who professed anti‐(29%) or pro‐ (71%) death penalty attitudes were exposed to one of four murder trials. Pro‐death penalty jurors were harsher in their sentencing, more likely to determine that the defendants had high volition and would be dangerous in the future, and were less likely to accept an insanity defence. The findings mirrored the profile of death qualified jurors in the United States.

The effects of a victim impact statement and gender on juror information processing in a criminal trial: Does the punishment fit the crime?

“…Given the higher sentences for those within the VIS condition, we expected that future dangerousness ratings should also be higher for this condition than in the non-VIS condition, as sentences are often correlated with ''dangerousness'' ratings (ForsterLee et al, 1999;Gottfredson, Gottfredson, & Conly, 1989;Sanderson, Zanna, & Darley, 2000). We predicted that both male and female jurors should give the highest ratings to female offenders, indicating their violent acts are considered deviant behaviour.…”

“…In the first instance Australian audiences, and those of other western countries, are familiar with the American justice system, particularly through popular television programming. Subsequently, this methodology has demonstrated its worth for collecting information on community attitudes regarding both actual and proposed innovations in the criminal justice system (ForsterLee, Horowitz, ForsterLee, King, & Ronlund, 1999;Hills & Thomson, 1999). Perhaps more important is the fact that jurors already make sentencing decisions in the US and Australia often follows American trends across issues as diverse as war, economics and taxation (Hillman, 2003;Lahgue, 2003;Lusty, 2003;Waters, 1999).…”

“…Specifically, research has shown that attitudes of pro-deathpenalty jurors in Australia parallel those of death qualified jurors in the United States (ForsterLee et al, 1999). Additionally, while Australia repealed the death penalty in the 1960s, polls and studies consistently show that around two-thirds of Australians currently support capital punishment (ForsterLee et al, 1999;Potas & Walker, 1987;Publicdebate, 1999) again mirroring their counterparts in America. Finally, apart from such cultural similarities, in general, the use of mock jurors enables information on accompanying emotional states possibly induced by a VIS to be collected.…”

The effects of defendant race, victim race, and juror gender on evidence processing in a murder trial

“…The transcript of the case, based on an actual criminal trial, was modified by ForsterLee, Horowitz, Forsterlee, King, and Ronlund (1999), and rewritten to fit an Australian legal context. A lawyer and a judge reviewed the prosecution and defense summations, while the lengthy judicial instructions were rewritten by a Queensland barrister and reviewed by a magistrate.…”

Influence of Acculturation Strategies on the Judgment of a Violent Act Committed by a North African Woman

“…Thus, an immigrant offender can be expected to benefit from a more lenient judgment if he adopts French culture than if he does not. However, the characteristics of the offender are not the only factors involved when making a judgment; the characteristics of the person making the judgment, particularly regarding their ideological orientation, also play a role (Fosterlee, Horowitz, Fosterlee, King & Ronlund, 1999). Thus, Mahfud, Badea and N'Gbala (2015) found that ideological orientation influenced the perception of cultural distance with the immigrant, involving a greater or lesser degree of prejudice.…”