The relationship between mock jurors’ religious characteristics and their verdicts and sentencing decisions.

Abstract

Two mock jury studies investigated whether jurors’ religious characteristics relate to verdicts and sentencing decisions. In Study 1, adding religious characteristics to a model with only demographics and authoritarianism increased the model’s explanatory power. Scoring high on devotionalism was significantly related to not guilty verdicts; scoring high on fundamentalism was significantly related to guilty verdicts. In both studies, being on a religious quest was significantly related to prodefendant legal decisions. Lawyers can use this information in jury selection. Further, authoritarianism was a mediator of the relationship between some religious variables and legal decisions, helping explain the underlying reasons for such relationships.

Religious Fundamentalism and Attitudes toward the Insanity Defense: The Mediating Roles of Criminal Attributions and Attitudes toward the Mentally Ill

“…Religious fundamentalist beliefs describe a rigid ideology, which includes belief in heaven and hell, angels and demons, and a literal interpretation of the Bible (Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 2004). Fundamentalist beliefs tend to relate punitive legal attitudes and decisions generally (e.g., Miller & Hayward, 2008;Miller, Maskaly, Peoples, & Sigillo, 2014). Similarly, fundamentalist beliefs were associated with more negative insanity defense attitudes and harsher sentences for insanity defendants (Kivisto & Swan, 2011;Yelderman & Miller, 2015).…”

Death penalty decision‐making: Fundamentalist beliefs and the evaluation of aggravating and mitigating circumstances

“…It is possible that these differences between and within affiliations arise as a result of individual differences in specific religious beliefs. For example, religious fundamentalism, a literal interpretation of the Bible, a harsher (or more punitive) image of God, and experiencing religious re-birth are associated with increased support for the death penalty, whereas devotionalism, evangelism, religious salience, and forgiveness are associated with reduced support for the death penalty (Applegate, Cullen, Fisher, & Vander Ven, 2000;Grasmick, Bursik, & Blackwell, 1993;Leiber & Woodrick, 1997;Miller & Hayward, 2008;Miller, Maskaly, Peoples, & Sigillo, 2014;Unnever & Cullen, 2006;Young, 1992). Understanding the relationship between religion and death penalty decision-making is better served by examining jurors' specific religious beliefs rather than broad categorical distinctions between religious affiliations.…”

The Impact of Applicants’ Weight and Education About Obesity on Applicant Ratings

“…Commonly, the dependent variables in these types of studies have been judgments of guilt and/or appropriate sentence (cf. Miller et al, 2014). However, these measures do not adequately measure perceptions of defendants across situations, and are not relevant at all of the decision points affecting legal outcomes.…”

“…4/ISSN 2325-7342) studying how extralegal factors affect judgments of criminal defendants (cf. Abwender & Hough, 2001;Corwin et al, 2012;Fontaine & Kiger, 1978;Miller et al, 2014;Najdowski & Bottoms, 2012). Some researchers have included additional measures such as bail recommendation, ratings of crime severity, likelihood of a repeat offense, or perception of the defendant's future (cf.…”

“…In addi tion to defendant age, researchers have focused on such extralegal factors as the presentation of remorse by offenders (Corwin, Cramer, Griffin, & Brodsky, 2012;Everett & Nienstedt, 1999), and the defendant's personal appearance including physical attractiveness (Abwender & Hough, 2001;Sigall & Ostrove, 1975), smiling (Abel & Watters, 2005), style of dress (Fontaine & Kiger, 1978), and tattoos (Funk & Todorov, 2013). Pretrial publicity (Hope, Memon, & McGeorge, 2004;Kovera, 2002;Ruva & Guenther, 2015;Steblay, Besirevic, Fulero, & JimenezLorente, 1999) and juror characteristics such as attitudes toward the death penalty, empathy, and type of religious beliefs (Crawley & Suarez, 2016;Fitzgerald & Ellsworth, 1984;Miller, Maskaly, Peoples, & Sigillo, 2014) have all been subjects of psychological study regarding perceptions of criminal defendants.…”