Abstract
Victim impact statements (VIS), though commonly used in capital sentencing, are criticized as tending to influence capital jurors' decisions by evoking strong, biasing, emotional responses. Although close to two decades of empirical work exists, we present here the first meta-analysis of the VIS literature. Consistent with narrative reviews, we find a small but robust effect such that VIS increases the likelihood of death sentences. The effect is smaller, however, for death-qualified samples. Few effects of moderator variables appeared, suggesting (again consistent with previous reviews) that more research is needed to identify exactly how VIS influences decisions. Policy implications are discussed.
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