Intentional Evidence: Effects on Mock-Jurors' Perceptions

Abstract

Intent has long been an important consideration of our legal system, yet little is known of its direct effect on jurors. Joann Horai and Mary Barrek made some initial steps cowards discovering the effects of intent of act in criminal situations in their finding thar intent did indeed influence punishment recommended by subjects (Horai, 1977; Horai & Bartek. 1978) . The present study extended this research to mock-jurors for whom the criminal act and consequences to the victim were held constant and evidence on intention was explicitly defined as statements made by the defendant, referring to the defendant's intentions, prior to or at the time of the crime. The study employed a 3 X 2 (type of evidence X sex) between-groups design. One hundred and eleven male and 111 female college smdents were randomly assigned to one of three groups and presented written case material which varied in type of evidence (intentional, oonintentional, or fact-only evidence). Subjects then responded individually to a questionnaire. Evidence suggesting an intentional act invariably led the subject-jurors to recommend more severe treatment for the defendant. lndividuals in the intentional group significantly more often chose verdicts of deliberate homicide over negligent homicide, relative to the nonintentional group [ X Z ? ( N = 148) = 33.71, p < .0001] and the fact group [ X 2 Z ( N = 148) = 12.57, p = ,00041. This analysis served as a manipulation check on the independent variable. More importantly, severity of prison sentence (F,,21a = 6.81, p = .001), length of parole ( F 2 . 2 0 = 4.86, 9 = .009) , and level of violence measures ( F 2 . 3 0 = 3.85, P = ,022) also showed main effects for type of evidence. Neuman-Keuls pairwise comparisons indicated the intentional group's mean score was always significantly greater than thar of the nonintentional group. A significant interaction for type of evidence by sex on perceived likelihood of future crime was also noted (Fz .=o = 6.17, P = .01) , suggesting that college women saw the male defendant as more likely to be involved in future crime than did the college men. This was not manifest in more severe sentences, however. These results show a relationship between type of evidence and jurors' resulting perceptions. Researchers might combine the types of evidence and extend this format to deliberating juries to maximize the usefulness of the findings.