Loaded Words in the Courtroom

Abstract

Historically, loaded words like victim were common in courtrooms. Even today, states like New Jersey use the word victim to refer to the for crimes in which consent is a defense (e.g., sexual assault). Concerned that defendants will be prejudiced, judges recently have banned such loaded words from their courtroom. Others, however, argue that such steps are counterproductive and have no empirical justification. In this paper, I examine the existing psychology literature regarding loaded words. I conclude that loaded words like victim can bias individual jurors in some criminal cases. If judges use the word victim in situations in which jurors may think the judge is referring to the person allegedly injured, the jurors may be more likely to find the defendant guilty, at least before deliberation with other jurors. To test this conclusion, I conducted a web experiment to determine whether jurors were more likely to find the defendant guilty when the complaining witness was described as a victim than a complainant in the judge's closing instructions. Participants in the experiment were shown a video of a simulated sexual assault trial, which concluded with a judge reading the New Jersey model instructions mentioning the word victim about ten times (participants in the control group saw a video in which the judge used the word complainant).