The Effects of Victim Gender, Defendant Gender, and Defendant Age on Juror Decision Making

Abstract

Mock jurors provided credibility ratings for a victim (12 years old) and defendant when victim gender, defendant gender, and defendant age (15 vs. 40 years old) were manipulated. Verdicts and sentence recommendations also were assessed. Higher guilt ratings were found for a male versus female defendant. Juror gender was examined as a covariate in the analyses. Female jurors rated the victim higher on accuracy, truthfulness, and believability than male jurors. Male jurors rated the defendant higher on reliability, credibility, truthfulness, and believability than female jurors. Male jurors perceived the victim to desire and cause the crime to a greater extent than female jurors. Mock jurors rated the victim as more responsible for the crime with an older versus younger defendant. Female jurors ascribed higher responsibility to the defendant compared to male jurors. The younger versus older defendant was perceived to have desired the event but only when the victim was female versus male.

A Likely Story? The Influence of Type of Alibi and Defendant Gender on Juror Decision-Making

“…Contrary to the majority of literature in this area (Hetherton & Beardsall, 1998;Pozzulo et al, 2010;Rogers & Davies, 2007), we found no main effect of defendant gender on continuous verdict decisions. However, our path analysis demonstrated that defendant gender did predict perceptions of femininity, which in turn predicted the believability of the defendant's testimony, his or her likeability ratings, and the degree to which participants found the alibi to be compelling.…”

“…Much of this literature is focused on the effects of defendant gender in sexual abuse trials, and this research predominantly Downloaded by [Northeastern University] at 21:55 01 December 2014 suggests that mock jurors are more likely to convict male defendants than female defendants (Hetherton & Beardsall, 1998;Pozzulo, Dempsey, Maeder, & Allen, 2010;Rogers & Davies, 2007). However, outside this context, results are less consistent.…”

“…Based on the literature investigating the effects of defendant gender on juror decision-making (Hetherton & Beardsall, 1998;Pozzulo et al, 2010;Rogers & Davies, 2007), we predicted that mock jurors would be more certain of the defendant's guilt when he was a man. However, we acknowledged that the literature in this area is mixed, and so we recognized the possibility that the opposite effect may occur (Breheney et al, 2007).…”

Racial Composition of Couples in Battered Spouse Syndrome Cases: A Look at Juror Perceptions and Decisions

“…Typically, women are more empathic and emotionally sensitive (Eisenberg & Lennon, 1983). Accordingly, female jurors tend to sympathize more with the victim and have been found to be harsher in their verdict decisions in a variety of cases as compared with male jurors (ForsterLee, ForsterLee, Horowitz, & King, 2006;Pozzulo, Dempsey, Maeder, & Allen, 2010). This finding is particularly pronounced in cases involving child abuse, sexual assault, or IPV (e.g., Bagby, Parker, Rector, & Kalemba, 1994;Burke, Ames, Etherington, & Pietsch, 1990;Kern, Libkuman, & Temple, 2007;Quas, Bottoms, Haegerich, & Nysse-Carris, 2002).…”

Probability Discounting of Legal and non-Legal Scenarios: Discounting Varies as a Function of the Outcome, the Recipient’s Race, and the Discounter’s Sex

“…If the defendant is convicted, then s/he studies have documented a consistent effect of race of the defendant (for reviews see Mitchell, Haw, Pfeifer, & Meissner, 2005;Sommers, 2007) and/or the juror (e.g., Sommers & Ellsworth, 2000) on juror's verdicts. Likewise, research has also reported that these decisions can vary as a function of the sex of the juror (e.g., Hughes & Tuch, 2003;Murrell, Dietz-Uhler, Dovidio, Gaertner, & Drout, 1994;Pozzulo, Dempsey, Maeder, & Allen, 2010). Are similar effects observed with plea bargains?…”