The Impact of Juror Characteristics and Victim Health Status on the Perception of Elder Physical Abuse

Abstract

An experiment investigated mock juror perceptions of elder abuse using a community sample from Lexington, Kentucky. Two-hundred six men and women ranging in age from 18 to 88 read a fictional criminal trial summary of a case of elder physical abuse (EPA) in which the accuser was described as healthy, frail, or confused. In addition, the influence of participant age, participant gender, and attitude toward the elderly on juror perceptions of EPA was also investigated. Results showed that women had higher conviction rates than did men. Accuser health status, participant age, participant gender, and attitude toward the elderly affected other rating variables including accuser believability, accuser inaccuracy, defendant believability, and verdict confidence. Results suggest implications for how EPA cases are perceived in court.

Jurors' Perceptions of an Elderly Eyewitness: Effects of Geriatric Diagnosis, Level of Care and Age

“…The findings of the present study also align with the Kinstle et al (2008) where researchers described the victim as healthy, confused, or frail and only saw the effect of decreased verdict confidence when the victim was described as confused. It would seem that participants who rendered not guilty verdicts are most concerned when the witness had a cognitive deficit but that other things such as level of care and frailty, which might infer a cognitive deficit, are not sufficient to influence their level of confidence.…”

“…There was no direct effect found on verdict, interestingly this was also true of the study by Kinstle et al (2008) where there was an effect on verdict confidence but not directly on verdict. The absence of significant effect in the current study may be potentially due to participants rendering their verdicts based more on the missing evidence (i.e., hard evidence: DNA, fingerprints, hair, skin, etc.)…”

“…Though there has been little research on older eyewitnesses, what few studies exist have shown that older adults are seen as less believable than younger witnesses by mock jurors and even police officers (Neal et al, 2012;Wright & Holiday, 2005). One series of studies found that verdict and confidence in the verdict was altered when the older witness was described as confused or as having a cognitive deficit (Golding et al, 2004;Kinstle et al, 2008). These findings suggest there may be a prejudicial attitude towards older adults that plays out within the judicial context, wherein older witnesses are seen as less reliable in their testimony.…”

“…Previous research has found that when using mock transcripts that included a victim described as having a cognitive deficit, more not guilty verdicts were elicited from mock jurors than a victim described as having a physical disability (Golding et al, 2004). A follow up study, describing a victim as healthy, confused, or frail, found no direct effect on verdicts; however, jurors felt less confident in not guilty verdicts when a victim was confused (Kinstle et al, 2008). The use of a geriatric disease as well as level of care as independent variables is highly appropriate and important to examine since the rates of mental and behavioural disorders in nursing homes has been estimated to be between 60 to 90% (depending on research methodology; Podgorski, Tariot, Blazina, Cox, & Leibovici, 1996).…”

“…Geriatric disease is a broad terminology that refers to disorders influencing older adults, that deviates from the normal aging process (Colman, 2008 Only a couple of mock juror studies (Golding, Allen, Yozwiak, Marsil, & Kinstle, 2004;Kinstle, Hodell, & Golding, 2008) have considered the effect of a cognitive impairment on verdicts rendered and it seems that none of the previous research has chosen to give the witness a specific geriatric disease. Previous research has found that when using mock transcripts that included a victim described as having a cognitive deficit, more not guilty verdicts were elicited from mock jurors than a victim described as having a physical disability (Golding et al, 2004).…”