Jurors' perceptions of juvenile defendants: the influence of intellectual disability, abuse history, and confession evidence

What do other people think he deserves? Social influence on utilization of mitigating information regarding a violent offender's unfortunate life history

The blameworthiness of an offender is often discussed in groups. Yet, the research literature overwhelmingly examines individuals assessing blameworthiness in isolation. To address this gap in the literature, the present study examines group deliberations about blameworthiness, with a particular focus on how group deliberations impact utilization of mitigating information about an offender's unfortunate life history. Participants from introductory psychology courses at a U.S. university were placed in groups of two or three and each group also included a confederate who followed a script. Groups were randomly assigned to one of four conditions. In one condition (deed only), groups learned only about the offender's heinous crimes. In the three remaining conditions, participants also received a historicist narrative regarding how the offender's unfortunate history deformed his moral character. These conditions differed in terms of the confederate's arguments: Neutral arguments, arguments to ignore the narrative, or arguments to give great weight to the narrative. Results showed that the historicist narrative was particularly effective at reducing outrage and increasing compassion when the confederate argued for its utilization. The reduction in outrage mediated a reduction in spiteful punitiveness toward the offender. Interestingly, the confederate who urged fellow deliberators to ignore the historicist narrative had no impact on outrage or compassion. We also examined mediation of the impact of historicist narratives on outrage and compassion. We found that when the confederate remained neutral the impact of historicist narratives on outrage and compassion was mediated via diminished perceptions of the offender's control of self-formation. This mirrors what is typically found in prior work focused on individual judgments. In contrast, when the confederate argued that great weight should be given to the narrative, reductions in outrage were mediated via diminished perceptions of offender freedom of action. This pattern of mediation is not typically found but has been found in one previous study where participants received social encouragement to mitigate blame. Results are discussed in terms of how social influence might alter the inferences draw from historicist narratives. Suggestions for future research on social influence in the context of blame are presented.

Life or death: A qualitative examination of mitigating and aggravating evidence presented in capital trials

The US Supreme Court has required that death penalty procedures narrow the class of persons eligible for a death sentence. Through the selection requirement, juries must use mitigating and aggravating evidence jointly to determine if a defendant is one of the worst of the worst, resulting in a sentence of life without parole or death. This study analyzed capital trial transcripts from the punishment phase to assess the type and amount of mitigating and aggravating evidence presented to jurors in cases resulting in life without parole and death. The main assumption of the research was that cases resulting in life without the possibility of parole (LWOP) would reveal patterns in the types of evidence presented and differing patterns in cases where the jury handed down a sentence of death. The study qualitatively examined the trial transcripts from the punishment phase of 18 capital murders (nine resulting in LWOP and nine in death). The extra-legal factors from each LWOP case were matched to a death case to eliminate sentencing discrepancies based on jurisdiction, race of defendant or victim, aggravator, age etc. The results found no consistent patterns of evidence presented in cases resulting life without parole and some relevant patterns in sentences resulting in death.

The impact of developmental language disorder in a defendant's description on mock jurors' perceptions and judgements

BACKGROUND

While it has been posited that young people with language needs may be viewed more negatively (e.g., as more rude, less cooperative) than those without language needs, the impact of knowing about a person's language needs on others' perceptions has yet to experimentally tested.

AIMS

To examine whether the presence of a developmental language disorder (DLD) diagnosis in a defendant's information would affect mock juror ratings of guilt, sentence length, credibility and blameworthiness.

METHODS & PROCEDURES

A total of 143 jury eligible participants read a vignette of a non-violent crime. Half of the participants (N = 73) were told the defendant has a diagnosis of DLD, while half (N = 70) were not told.

OUTCOMES & RESULTS

Preregistered analyses found that DLD information affected ratings of credibility and blameworthiness, though not judgements of guilt or sentence length. Unregistered content analyses were applied to the justifications participants gave for their ratings: these suggested that participants who did not have the DLD information judged the defendant more on his personality and attitude, and drew more links to his (perceived) background, while participants who received the DLD information condition made more reference to him having cognitive problems.

CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS

Unlike in previous studies of the impact of autism information, information about a defendant's DLD did not affect mock jurors' likelihood of finding them guilty, or lead participants to give longer sentences. However, our findings suggest knowing a person has DLD does affect others' perceptions of credibility and blameworthiness.

WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS

What is already known on the subject There is already evidence that some conditions that affect communication, specifically autism, also affect juror perceptions. Research also shows that knowing whether or not a defendant has autism influences how jurors rate defendants. However, autism is not the only condition that is relevant to juror perceptions, as we also know that a high rate of young offenders have language needs, and many have language profiles like DLD. What this paper adds to existing knowledge There is little research on how behaviours associated with DLD impact others' perceptions. This study reports the impact of knowing about a defendant's DLD on juror perceptions, investigating whether knowing about DLD improves judgements on guilt, sentencing lengths, credibility and culpability. Beyond the content of youth offending, this study suggests behaviours associated with DLD lead people to form more negative judgements about youth with DLD. This is important because there is still a lack of awareness of DLD both in- and outside the criminal justice system. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? This study shows that knowing about a person's DLD has largely positive effects on others' perceptions of them. This implies that recognizing undetected language needs in young offenders, and supporting colleagues and members of the public to know what DLD is and how it affects people, is critical for youth with DLD to be judged fairly. This study will support the case for raising awareness of vulnerability within the youth justice population, and will assist in clinicians evidencing the need for our roles in justice settings.

Losing the lottery of life: Examining intuitions of desert toward the socially and genetically "unlucky" in criminal punishment contexts

This research presents three experiments that examine how natural "luck" (social and genetic luck) may affect lay intuitions toward desert-based criminal punishment. Study 1 examined if intuitions surrounding desert-based rewards in relation to good qualities/advantages ascribed to natural luck would extend to desert-based punishments in relation to bad qualities/disadvantages ascribed to natural luck. Study 2 examined how both social and genetic luck affect support for desert-based punishment across different criminal offenses and tests the relevance of immanent justice reasoning to such support. Study 3 examined whether findings in the prior studies are specific to desert-based punishment and immanent justice reasoning, or if natural luck elicits broader punishment judgments and types of justice reasoning. Results showed that known intuitions surrounding desert-based rewards do extend to desert-based punishments in instances of natural luck. Immanent justice reasoning was strongly associated with support for desert-based punishment in instances of both social and genetic luck. However, genetic luck, as compared to social luck, significantly increased support for desert-based punishment, with imminent justice reasoning mediating this increased support. Implications are discussed in relation to capital sentencing and better understanding lay intuitions toward the punishment of criminal offenders who may have qualities ascribed to the "natural lottery."

Those who ignore the past are doomed…to be heartless: Lay historicist theory is associated with humane responses to the struggles and transgressions of others

When one learns that current struggles or transgressions of an individual or group are rooted in an unfortunate history, one experiences compassion and reduced blame. Prior research has demonstrated this by having participants receive (or not) a concrete historicist narrative regarding the particular individual or group under consideration. Here, we take a different approach. We explore the possibility that everyday people show meaningful variation in a broad lay theory that we call lay historicism. Lay historicists believe that—as a general fact—people’s psychological characteristics and life outcomes are powerfully molded by their life histories. We present eight studies linking lay historicism to broad tendencies toward compassion and non-blaming. Collectively, Studies 1–5 suggest that lay historicism affects compassion and blame, respectively, via distinct mechanisms: (1) Lay historicism is associated with compassion because it creates a sense that—as a general fact—past suffering lies behind present difficulties, and (2) lay historicism is associated with blame mitigation because historicists reject the idea that—as a general fact—people freely and autonomously create their moral character. Thus, lay historicism increases compassion and decreases blame via distinct mechanisms. The remaining studies diversify our evidence base. Study 6 examines criminal justice philosophies rather than broad moral traits (as in the earlier studies) and shows that lay historicism is associated with preference for humane criminal justice philosophies. Study 7 moves from abstract beliefs to concrete situations and shows that lay historicism predicts reduced blaming of an irresponsible peer who is encountered face-to-face. One additional study—in our Supplemental Materials—shows that lay historicism predicts lower levels of blaming on implicit measures, although only among those who also reject lay controllability theories. Overall, these studies provide consistent support for the possibility that lay historicism is broadly associated with humane responding to the struggles and transgressions of others.

The potential influence of criminological rationales in considering childhood abuse as mitigating to sentencing

BACKGROUND

U.S. courts currently show no coherent approach with regard to how evidence of childhood abuse is considered in sentencing. Existing state and federal caselaw suggests that courts rarely place significant consideration on evidence of childhood abuse during sentencing, but the reasons why offenders who have been subjected to childhood abuse rarely receive mitigated or alternative sentences remain unknown. Yet literature has suggested it might be because no convincing rationales have been yet developed for the court in contending that penalties of offenders who were subjected to childhood abuse should be mitigated.

OBJECTIVE

This research examines if and how criminological theoretical perspectives linking childhood abuse and later offending (Social Control Theory, Social Learning Theory, General Strain Theory) are persuasive in arguing childhood abuse (neglect, witnessing trauma, sexual abuse, physical abuse) as mitigating to criminal sentencing.

PARTICIPANTS

A national sample of U.S. adults (N = 521).

METHODS

A multi-factorial, vignette-based experiment was conducted, utilizing OLS and mediation analyses.

RESULTS

Evidence on childhood abuse, and particularly sexual abuse, reduced support for incapacitation (B = -0.13, p ≤ 0.05) and increased support for rehabilitation (B = 0.16, p ≤ 0.01). Social Control Theory was particularly persuasive in arguing childhood abuse as mitigating to prison time and in relation to support for rehabilitative sentencing (mediated by beliefs regarding what the theory conveys about future dangerousness and reduced responsibility).

CONCLUSIONS

Criminological theories appear to be persuasive rationales for arguing childhood abuse as mitigating to sentencing contexts involving incapacitation and rehabilitation. Implications for sentencing guidelines and systems are discussed.

Examining jurors' ability to meet the constitutional requirement of narrowing in capital sentencing

The US Supreme Court has required that death penalty schemes narrow the class of persons eligible for a death sentence. Through the selection requirement, juries must use mitigating and aggravating evidence jointly to select the offenders engaged in the worst of the worst crimes. This study utilized between-subjects experimental design to test juror's ability to narrow directly. Utilizing the vignette approach, with brief descriptions of capital trials nested in self-administered questionnaires, we experimentally manipulated aggravating and mitigating evidence presented to mock jurors and examined their sentencing decisions in two independent samples. While mock jurors were able to identify offenders they considered to be engaged in serious crimes and offenders with diminished culpability, mitigating evidence and aggravating evidence did not interact and there was considerable inconsistency in the effects of mitigating evidence within and between samples. Implications for the constitutionality of the death penalty are considered.

Do laypeople recognize youth as a risk factor for false confession? A test of the 'common sense' hypothesis

In a survey of confession experts, 94% agreed that youth is a risk factor for false confession, but only 37% felt that jurors understand this. To date, no study has tested the latter by comparing laypeople's perceptions of juvenile and adult suspects. To address this gap, Experiment 1 participants read a lengthy (i.e. interrogation and confession) or abridged (i.e. confession-only) transcript of an ostensibly juvenile or adult suspect's interrogation. Transcript length affected perceived pressure but not guilt judgments. Suspect age had little effect, with 75% of participants misjudging the juvenile as guilty. Experiment 2 then tested how expert testimony affects judgments of juvenile suspects. Participants read a lengthy or abridged interrogation transcript, with or without testimony from a juvenile confession expert. Expert testimony somewhat impacted guilt judgments but did not influence perceptions of the interrogation. Implications for interrogation practices, trial procedure and future research are discussed.

When history becomes his story: Shifts in narrative perspective weaken the blame-mitigating force of life-history narratives

Life-history narratives describing how a transgressor developed aversive traits can mitigate blame. How is their effectiveness affected by narrative perspective? In particular, how is blame mitigation impacted when the transgressor appears to be knowledgeable of the story of his self-formation? In three experiments, we compare the effectiveness of narratives that reflect an objective perspective to those that reflect the transgressor's perspective. The experiments contrast two hypotheses. The Perspective Taking hypothesis asserts that the transgressor perspective will be especially effective for blame mitigation because it encourages 'stepping into the shoes' of the transgressor. In contrast, the Should Know Better hypothesis asserts that the transgressor perspective will be especially ineffective because it reveals the transgressor to have self-knowledge, which triggers an inference that he deeply comprehends the suffering he causes. Results support the Should Know Better hypothesis. Furthermore, Experiment 3 shows that the transgressor perspective increases blameworthiness regardless of whether the transgressor's prior life experiences parallel what he inflicts on his victims.

Mock Juror Perceptions of Credibility and Culpability in an Autistic Defendant

One-hundred-and-sixty jury-eligible participants read a vignette describing a male who was brought to the attention of police for suspicious and aggressive behaviours and displayed atypical behaviours in court. Half of participants were informed that he had autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and were given background information about ASD; the other half received no diagnostic label or information. The provision of a label and information led to higher ratings of the defendant's honesty and likeability, reduced blameworthiness, and resulted in fewer guilty verdicts, and more lenient sentencing. Thematic analysis revealed that participants in the label condition were more empathetic and attributed his behaviours to his ASD and mitigating factors, while participants in the No label condition perceived the defendant as deceitful, unremorseful, rude and aggressive.

How confession characteristics impact juror perceptions of evidence in criminal trials

A confession is one of the most impactful pieces of evidence that can be presented in a criminal trial, yet very little is known about how perceptions of evidence change based on characteristics of the confession. While researchers know that "circumstances of the setting", such as length of interrogation, number of interrogators, and lack of sleep, increase the likelihood of false confessions, less is known about whether juror perceptions of the confession are impacted by these factors. The current research builds on the existing literature by evaluating the impact of these situational confession factors to determine whether jurors give weight to characteristics that are known to increase the likelihood of a false confession. Two experimental surveys were conducted, one using a sample of undergraduate students and one using a sample of jury-eligible adults, in order to determine how respondents perceived a confession's strength. Results showed that confessions arising from lengthy interrogations were perceived to be weaker than those arising from short interrogations. However, multiple interrogators and a lack of sleep had little impact on evidence perceptions; these factors indicate a questionable confession to experts, but not to jurors. The implications for criminal justice theory, criminal trials, and future research are discussed.

Juror Decision-making in Death Penalty Sentencing when Presented with Defendant's History of Child Abuse or Neglect

Previous studies have found aggravating, mitigating, and null effects of defendant histories of abuse and neglect on punishment preferences in capital sentencing. Perceiving these defendants as more dangerous, jurors may be more likely to favor the death penalty when such evidence is presented. This is counter to the intuition that abuse or neglect reduces culpability, and therefore mitigates the severity of punishment. We investigated the effect of defendant childhood physical abuse, sexual abuse, or neglect on the probability of a prospective juror preferring the death penalty in an between-subject experimental design. Using vignettes and two large samples (students and jurors), defendant histories were found to mitigate the probability that the hypothetical defendant received the death penalty, with sexual abuse having the most salient effect. Further, the effects were conditioned by preference for the death penalty - larger mitigating effects were observed among individuals who favor the death penalty. These findings suggest that initial judgments of abuse and neglect are related to juror leniency, and further research on the interaction of jury instructions and defendant histories is needed. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Statements from Youth in Legal Contexts: Effects of Consistency, Legal Role, and Age

Jurors are often asked to evaluate statements provided by young victims, witnesses, and suspects. When, over time, youths' statements contain inconsistent information or recantations of prior statements, jurors face a difficult task in evaluating the validity of the initial claim. The underlying reasons for inconsistencies and recantation of young people's statements, particularly in cases of child sexual abuse, have been debated. Of primary interest here is whether inconsistencies (e.g., recantation) are evaluated differently by fact finders depending on the youth's age and role in a legal case. The current study examined effects of consistency of juvenile statements, legal role, and age on perceptions of testimony in a child sexual abuse investigation. Participants (N = 693) read vignettes describing child sexual abuse in which consistency of a follow-up statement (consistent, inconsistent, recanted), legal role (victim, witness, suspect), and age (10 years, 16 years) of the juvenile providing testimony were manipulated. The results revealed that judgments of initial statement quality, blameworthiness, and guilt were dependent on the consistency of follow-up statements and on the interactive effects of a juvenile's legal role and age. The current study has theoretical implications for understanding juror decision-making and practical implications for legal professionals and fact finders evaluating youths' statements. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Impact of Psychiatric Information on Potential Jurors in Evaluating High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (hfASD)

During a trial involving an offender with a mental disorder, jurors are often required to evaluate information on the disorder and its characteristics. This evaluation relies on how jurors understand and synthesize psychiatric and other evidence on the disorder and this information's impact on the case, an offender's culpability, and the rendered verdict. The importance of this evaluation is further highlighted when jurors are faced with evaluating a disorder that may be associated with criminal actions of diagnosed offenders, such as high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (hfASD). We designed a three-part survey to assess potential jurors' attitudes concerning an offender's diagnosis with hfASD in terms of perceptions and decisions surrounding legal and moral responsibility, personal characteristics of the offender, the introduction of psychiatric and genetic information, and the condition's influence on the facts of the case. A sample of 623 jury-eligible U.S. adults completed the survey. We found the majority of participants were influenced by the information provided on hfASD. Most respondents indicated that hfASD diagnosis should generally not affect the legal responsibility of an offender, but many reported the disorder as a mitigating factor when evaluating moral responsibility and legal consequences for criminal actions. Respondents reported favorable and sympathetic perceptions of individuals with autism and associated characteristics but were unsure, even after the presentation of psychiatric information on hfASD, if these disorders should be classified as "mental illness." Further, the majority reported their views were in some way influenced by the fact that hfASD has potential genetic origins.

The Influence of a Juvenile's Abuse History on Support for Sex Offender Registration

We investigated whether and how a juvenile's history of experiencing sexual abuse affects public perceptions of juvenile sex offenders in a series of 5 studies. When asked about juvenile sex offenders in an abstract manner (Studies 1 and 2), the more participants (community members and undergraduates) believed that a history of being sexually abused as a child causes later sexually abusive behavior, the less likely they were to support sex offender registration for juveniles. Yet when participants considered specific sexual offenses, a juvenile's history of sexual abuse was not considered to be a mitigating factor. This was true when participants considered a severe sexual offense (forced rape; Study 3 and Study 4) and a case involving less severe sexual offenses (i.e., statutory rape), when a juvenile's history of sexual abuse backfired and was used as an aggravating factor, increasing support for registering the offender (Study 3 and Study 5). Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

Biases in judging victims and suspects whose statements are inconsistent

In this commentary, we point to similarities in characteristics of suspect and victim/witness statements and the underlying motivations of these individuals. Despite the similarities, there are differences in how such statements are evaluated by fact-finders and investigators. Retractions, for example, cast serious doubt on the credibility of victims/witnesses but appear not to diminish the power of confessions. Investigators need to recognize the wide range of motivations behind statements made to the authorities and be mindful of biased dispositions to doubt victims and believe confessors, especially when their statements are inconsistent or retracted. An investigative process that was entirely transparent would help ensure that inconsistencies and retractions, whether in statements from victims, witnesses, or suspects, are viewed in the context of other statements and eliciting circumstances.