Juvenile offenders on trial: does alibi corroboration evidence and defendant age interact to influence jurors’ perceptions and verdicts?

Abstract

In the present study the potential interaction between defendant age and alibi corroboration on mock jurors' perceptions and assessments of guilt was examined. Mock jurors (N D 231) read a trial transcript varying the defendant's age (14-, 18-, or 22-years-old) and alibi evidence (no corroboration, person corroboration, or physical corroboration). The defendant was significantly less likely to be found guilty if he had physical evidence to support his alibi in comparison to not having support for his alibi. Similarly, the defendant and his alibi were perceived to be more credible, truthful, and believable when he had supporting person or physical evidence. An interaction between defendant age and alibi corroboration was not found; however, alibi corroboration did have a significant influence on mock jurors' decisions. These findings will be discussed in the context of application and future directions.

The illusion of the perfect alibi: Establishing the base rate of non‐offenders' alibis

“…The case vignette detailed that a mock robbery was committed last Tuesday or Saturday at one of the timeframes. A robbery was chosen as mock crime comparable to previous studies (e.g., Allison et al, ; Allison et al, ; Culhane & Hosch, , ; Eastwood et al, ; Pozzulo et al, ). To increase the ecological validity, we asked the participants to imagine that he or she was a suspect and that the police asked them where they had been during the robbery.…”

“…Although recent research also shows that evidence is an influential factor determining alibi believability (e.g., Jung et al, ; Pozzulo, Pettalia, Dempsey, & Gooden, ), it is also known that, contrary to what Olson and Wells () argued, other factors affect the alibi believability too. For instance, the consistency of the alibi (Culhane & Hosch, ; Nieuwkamp, Horselenberg, & Van Koppen, ), the context in which the alibi is first presented (Sommers & Douglass, ), and the salaciousness of the alibi (Allison, Jung, Sweeney, & Culhane, ; Allison, Mathews, & Michael, ; Jung et al, ; Nieuwkamp et al, ).…”

The Effect of Evidence Timing and Witness Motivation upon Juror Evaluations of Alibi Witnesses and Defendants

“…Thus, weak alibis do not affect jurors' decision-making (Dahl et al, 2009). Shpurik and Meissner (2004) and Pozzulo, Pettalia, Dempsey, and Gooden (2014) suggest that jurors only consider alibi testimony when lacking other evidence against the defendant, an assertion reinforced by the low reliability ratings of the alibi evidence in general in the present study. This contradicts the results of similar studies which found higher guilt ratings when a motivated alibi witness testified (Hosch et al, 2011).…”

True and false alibis among prisoners and their detection by police detectives

“…Reporting an alibi without strong supportive evidence for it is one of the most stable findings in all alibi research (e.g. Jung et al, 2013;Pozzulo et al, 2015). Such strong evidence most often consists of physical evidence.…”

“…The studies by Culhane et al (2013) Having knowledge about a non-offender's alibis is fundamental to differentiate between true and false alibis as argued by Olson and Charman (2012, p. 464): 'The perception in the legal system that alibis have diagnostic value is critically dependent on the assumption that innocent people should be able to produce relatively strong and accurate alibis; otherwise, alibis would be useless as tools to differentiate the innocent from the guilty.' Besides the generated alibi that needs to be correct, the presence and strength of the evidence are the most important factors for a believable alibi (Pozzulo, Pettalia, Dempsey, & Gooden, 2015). As stated above, the research on alibi generation shows that nonoffenders are more likely to present weak supportive evidence rather than strong supportive evidence (e.g.…”